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THE  REGENERATORS 


RUDOLPH    SPRECKELS 


The     chief    of     the     regenerators     and     financial     backer     of     the 
Graft    Prosecution. 


THE 
REGENERATORS 


A  Study  of  the  Graft  Prosecution 
of  San  Francisco 


BY 

THEODORE   BONNET 


ILLUSTRATED 


San  Francisco 

PACIFIC  PRINTING  COMPANY 

1911 


Copyriglit,     1911,    by 
TIIEOIX^KF.   BONNET. 


T5 
PREFACE  '  / /  / 


I'o  the  Average  Citizen: 

Dear  Sir:  Peniiit  me  to  offer  yon  this  little 
book  if  for  no  other  pnrpose  than  to  employ 
yon  as  a  pretext  for  the  zvriting  of  a  forezvord. 
Thongh  I  do  not  agree  zvith  the  zvriters  of  the 
long  ago  that  a  book  rightly  comprehended  is 
bnt  a  peg  on  ivhich  to  hang  a  preface  redolent 
of  the  author's  charming  personality  and  pal- 
pitant Zi'ith  his  life-blood,  I  feel  that  not  akvays 
should  a  man  hazard  himself  between  book 
covers  zcithout  an  explanation. 

The  events  ivhich  most  deeply  occupy  the 
minds  of  one  generation  are  often  those  of  ivhich 
the  next  knows  least.  This  thought  occurred  to 
me  some  years  ago.  ivlieii  as  a  result  of  laborious 
research  I  made  )nyself  more  or  less  familiar 
with  the  career  of  the  Jlgilance  Committee  of 
i8§6.  For  many  years  it  was  supposed  that  the 
Vigilantes  of  San  Francisco  were  public  benefac- 
tors, whose  motives  were  untainted,  whose  per- 
formances entitled  them  to  the  veneration  of 
posterity.  Latterly  it  has  been  found  that  this 
judgment  might  be  somewhat  modified  without 
incurring  the  suspicion  of  injustice.  Mindful  of 
the.  tendency  of  events  to  become  so  clouded  as 
to  make  it  difficult  to  trace  the  connection  be- 
tween causes  and  effects,  I  resolved  to  make  this 
book  that  I  might  preserve  from  immediate  de- 


iv  THE    REGENERATORS 

cav  some  curious  material,  tchich,  though  it  may 
suggest  uo  patterns  to  imitate,  at  all  events  is  not 
ivithout  examples  to  deter.  The  book  is  a  study 
of  the  Graft  Prosecution  of  San  Francisco,  a  sort 
of  moral  autopsy  on  a  corpse  that  has  just  given 
its  last  kick. 

I  know  that  usually,  dear  average  citisen,  you 
buy  a  book  to  be  amused.  I  know  that  to  you 
a  book  means  something  to  while  away  a  tedious 
hour,  and  so  I  have  tried  to  adapt  the  book  to 
your  taste  and  temperament ;  that  is,  I  have 
moralised  as  little  as  possible,  and  I  have  strung 
my  essays  together  on  a  thread  of  general  in- 
terest, arranging  the  most  vivid  facts  and  divert- 
ing incidents  in  zvhat  I  conceive  to  be  a  coherent 
picture.  But  I  have  tried  also  not  to  lose  sight 
of  my  purpose,  ivhich  is  to  induce  you  to  think. 
You  flatter  yourself  that  your  mind  is  keen, 
practical,  versatile,  in  full  possession  of  life, 
always  steeped  in  affairs,  always  cognisant  of 
zvhat  is  going  on  in  tlic  world:  but  as  a  matter 
of  fact  you  are  under  a  spell.  Your  thoughts 
are  formed  for  you  zvithout  your  knozvledge ; 
you  meditate  along  lines  laid  down  for  you;  even 
your  ozvn  judgment  is  a  matter  of  intellectual 
process  foreign  to  yourself.  In  short  you  are 
the  pliant  tool  of  the  press.  It  is  your  boast  that 
you  don't  believe  zvhat  you  read  in  the  nezvs- 
papcrs.  The  truth  is  you  don't  believe  anything 
else.  The  tyrant  nezvspaper  has  you  in  thrall. 
Pretending  to  reflect  your  opinion  in  its  editorial 


PREFACE  V 

coliiiiuis,  the  of^iiiioii  it  reflects  in  titosc  coluiiiiis 
is  the  opinion  which  xou  formed  fro)n  reading 
disguised  editorial  matter  fashioned  for  your 
deception  and  injected  into  you  through  the 
medium  of  the  neivs  columns.  As  a  result  of  the 
imposture  practiced  on  you  from  day  to  day  yon 
liaz'e  become  incredulous  of  nothing  but  the 
truth.  You  are  like  the  toper  who  has  so  keen 
a  taste  for  raw  spirits  that  good  whisky  nauseates 
him._  Xow  herein  a  thesis  is  employed  as  a 
X'.'hetting-block  to  sharpen  up  your  zvits,  and  yon 
are  expected  to  yield  them  to  one  who  zconld 
make  you  sceptical  of  your  smug  infallibility.  I 
hope  to  have  your  mind  share  the  processes  on 
which  I  have  been  engaged,  and  if  possible  I 
would  have  you  accept  my  point  of  vieiv,  that  you 
may  see  things  as  I  have  seen  them,  on  a  some- 
what broader  base  of  knowledge  than  you  have 
had  hitherto.  I  would  persuade  you  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  there  being  two  sides  to  a  story.  This 
peculiarity  of  stories  is  proverbial,  but  that  any- 
thing you  have  read  in  the  newspapers  and 
accepted  as  though  it  were  clothed  with  the 
sanctity  of  holy  writ,  could  be  presented  from 
any  viewpoint  other  than  the  one  from  ivhich 
you  observed  it,  is  an  idea  that  doubtless  will 
strike  you  as  preposterous.  It  is  of  the  ration- 
ality of  this  idea  that  I  would  convince  you;  and 
hence  this  series  of  essays,  through  which  runs 
a  thread  of  narrative  of  an  historical  nature, 
dealing  with   events  i^^'hich   are   n.attcrs   of  per- 


vi  THE    REGENERATORS 

soiial  recollection,  and  ivith  facts  that  have  been 
authenticated.  Presumably  you  have  read  of  the 
prosecution  of  grafters  in  San  Francisco.  Pre- 
sumably you  know  of  the  crimes  that  zvere  im- 
puted to  the  higher-ups  in  the  course  of  the 
prosecution.  It  is  my  purpose  to  tell  the  other 
side  of  tlie  story,  to  conduct  you  through  an 
inquiry  respecting  the  conduct  of  the  men  icho 
consecrated  their  talents  to  the  task  of  regenerat- 
ing a  city.  Frankly  I  seek  to  direct  your  judg- 
ment of  men  and  events.  So  not  betzvecn  these 
covers  is  to  be  found  the  pose  of  the  disinter- 
ested historian.  "To  be  entirely  just  in  our 
estimate  of  other  ages,"  says  Froudc,  "is  not  only 
difficult — it  is  impossible."  It  is  impossible  be- 
cause one's  sympathies  are  swayed  by  one's  tem- 
perament, directed  by  one's  instinctive  prepos- 
sessions. If,  then,  one  cannot  zvrite  impartially 
of  other  ages,  how  absurd  to  affect  impartiality 
in  zvriting  of  one's  ozvn  age;  especially  in  zi'rit- 
ing  of  events  that  tried  one's  soul,  of  men  that 
provoked  one's  anger  and  resentment.  Of  such 
events,  of  such  men,  have  I  zvritten  in  these 
imperfect  essays.  And  though  time  has  assuaged 
my  feelings,  it  has  not  affected  my  beliefs,  nor 
has  it  zveakened  my  convictions. 

As  I  look  back  on  the  turbulent  days  that  are 
gone  I  haz'c  nothing  but  repentance  for  the  per- 
sonal bias,  that  most  irrational  of  all  human 
conceits,  to  zvhich  I  yielded  on  seeing  zvhat  I  re- 
garded   as    private    animosity    masquerading    as 


PREFACE  vii 

p  blic  duty.  Hoi^'  greatly  docs  pariisaiishif^  con- 
duce to  self-deception!  The  partisan  flatters 
himself  that  he  hates  a  man  on  principle  when 
if  is  only  because  the  man  is  on  the  other  side. 
By  the  experience  of  the  past  J  Jiave  been  chas- 
tened and  disciplined,  and  zvhile  I  icill  not  pre- 
tend that  I  breathe  the  serene  air  of  the  temple 
of  zcisdoin  far  abo-c'c  the  rage  of  the  zcarring 
elements  of  human  nafure^  I  trust  that  I  have  pur- 
sued my  study  i^'ith  feelings  free  from  resentment, 
though  alzvays  eoiscious  of  the  rights  zvhich 
criticism  reserz'es  to  itself.  I  haz'c  z^'ritten,  I 
trust,  zvith  no  lack  of  reverence  for  the  truth. 
But  so  strange  is  truth  that  much  of  this  book 
Zk'HI  read  to  you  almost  as  an  c.vperiment  upon 
your  credulity.  Knoz^'ing  this  I  hasten  to  assure 
you  that  zvhat  is  incredible  may  be  not  the  less 
true;  that,  indeed,  zchat  is  most  incredible  is  most 
true. 

Theodore  Boxxi:r. 
September  it,  igu. 


CONTENTS 


I'age 
Prologue  1 

Chapter   I.     Birth   of   the   Regenerators 14 

How  the  Prosecution  was  Organized,  and  the 
Gradual    Unfolding   of    Its    Plans. 

Chapter    II.     Men    and    Motives 32 

A  Study  of  the  Leading  Regenerators  and  of  Their 
Attitude  Toward  the  Chief  Grafter  and  Some  of 
the    Higher-ups. 

Chapter   III.     The   Car   Strikes 44 

Because  Union  Men  Demand  and  Are  Denied  Lower 
Wages  a  City  is  Made  to  SufTer  from  Lawlessness 
and   Business   Paralysis. 

Chapter   IV.     Bizarre  Justice 65 

The  Manipulation  of  Juries,  Grand  and  Petty,  a 
Plague  of  Spies  and  the  Employment  of  General 
Warrants. 

Chapter  V.     Grafters  and  Prosecutors 78 

When  Facts  Don't  Square  with  Theory  Then  Comes 
Progressive    Testimony    Lender    the    Immunity     Lash. 

Chapter  VI.     Ruef  Pleads  Guilty  and  Why 101 

Experience  of  the  Former  Boss  in  the  Hands  of  the 
Regenerators :  He  Bargains  for  Immunity,  but  Re- 
fuses to  Give  the  Right  Kind  of  Testimony  and  is 
Forsworn. 

Chapter   VII.     The    Schmitz    Case 136 

A  Trial  in  Which  the  Law  was  Adapted  to  the  Pur- 
poses of  the  Regenerators  Without  Regard  to'  Ele- 
mental Principles  or  the  Constitutional  Rights  of  the 
Defendant. 

Chapter  VIII.     The  Dynamite  Explosion 163 

A  Miracle  by  Which  the  Precious  Life  of  a  Great 
Grafter  was  Spared,  and  Which  Enabled  the  Re- 
generators   to    Inflame    Public    Opinion. 


X  THE    REGENERATORS 

Page 

Cliapter   IX.     The  Shooting  of  Heney 184 

An  Infuriated  Ex-Convict  Revenges  Himself  on  the 
Virulent  Prosecutor  and  Commits  Suicide  Just  as 
Detective    Burns    is    About    to    Pursue    a    Clue. 

Chapter  X.     The  Biggy  Mystery 208 

Hounded  by  the  Regenerators  the  Chief  of  Police 
Comes    to    a    Tragic    End. 

Chapter  XI.     The   Conviction  of  Ruef 219 

A  Jury  After  Listening  to  Vague  Threats  from  the 
Prosecuting  Attorney  Renders  a  Verdict  of  Guilty. 

Chapter  XII.     The  Calhoun  Trial 229 

Followed  by  the  Crushing  Defeat  of  Heney  at  the 
Polls  and  a  Scattering  of  the  Forces  of  Righteousness. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Page 
Fragments  of  the   Cornelius  Letters 57 

The   Car   Strike 65 

Judge   Franl<   H.   Dunne 147 

After  the  Miracle 169 

Ruef  Going  To  and  From  Court 225 

Judge  William  P.  Lawlor 235 


THE  REGENERATORS 


PROLOGUE 


Convulsed  by  earthquake,  devastated  by  fire, 
San  Francisco  next  experienced  what  some  per- 
sons have  pronounced  a  greater  affliction — the 
(iraft  Prosecution.  The  scars  of  earthquake 
and  fire  are  no  longer  visible,  the  wounds  in- 
flicted by  the  passions  of  man  are  still  raw. 
San  Francisco,  nay,  all  California,  is  today  ex- 
|)iating  a  protracted  moral  debauch.  Strange 
history  is  in  the  making-  in  California. 

All  history  we  have  been  told  is  philosophy 
teaching  by  example.  This  is  true  of  current, 
as  well  as  of  ancient,  history ;  of  what  is 
happening  in  California  today  as  well  as  of 
what  hapi^ened  in  England  in  the  time  of 
Cromwell.  The  size  of  the  stage  upon  which  the 
great  dramas  of  history  were  enacted  is  a  cir- 
cumstance having  not  the  slightest  effect  on  the 
value  of  the  material  supplied  for  philosophic 
deduction.  As  much  is  to  be  learned  from  the 
history  of  Florence  or  of  the  Dutch  Republic  as 
from  that  of  the  great  Roman  Empire,  for,  after 
all,  the  study  of  mankind  ma}-  be  ])rofitaIi]\-  ]n\v- 


2  T[1K    RI-:GRNERA'r()RS 

^ued   wherever   "the   feeble   worm  of  the   earth" 
is  to  be  found  indulging"  in  his  foUies. 

Now  on  the  whole  there  is  much  varied  and 
valuable  food  for  reflection  in  the  story  of  the 
Graft  Prosecution  from  the  standpoint  at  which 
it  is  here  to  be  presented.  And  the  study  of  it 
may  be  pursued  with  advantage  at  this  particular 
time,  since  we  are  now  entering  tipon  a  new  era 
of  political  development :  since  we  are  being  ad- 
vised and  persuaded  that  the  people  are  so  en- 
lightened and  so  just  that  they  are  no  longer  in 
need  of  the  institutional  checks  and  safeguards 
designed  and  contrived  by  the  Founders.  It 
will  be  seen  that  notwithstanding  the  spread  of 
"sweetness  and  light,"  the  susceptibilities  of 
human  nature  are  the  same  today  as  in  the  Stuart 
period  of  English  government,  which  is  at  once 
that  of  the  greatest  glory  and  greatest  shame 
in  liritish  annals:  a  period  in  wdiich  judicial 
records  were  stained  by  the  foulest  crimes  in 
modern  history.  There  are  no  pages  in  history 
that  fill  us  with  so  much  disgust,  so  much  horror, 
as  those  that  present  the  narratives  of  crimes 
committed  in  the  name  of  justice  in  times  of 
popular  panic :  as,  for  example,  the  crimes  by 
which  Titus  Oates  achieved  immortal  infamy, 
and  the  crimes  that  made  the  Galas  tragedy 
memorable  in  the  annals  of  France.  Gharacter- 
ized  by  the  same  spirit  of  inhumanity,  conclusive 
of  the  same  indifference  to  the  principles  of 
justice,  were  the  strange  enormities  that  marked 


PROLOGUE  3 

the  progress  of  pseudo-reg-eneration  in  San  Fran- 
cisco. It  will  be  found,  perhaps,  that  the  lesson 
which  the  Graft  Prosecution  affords  is  one  of 
personal  interest  to  every  individual  in  the  United 
States.  For  the  political  institutions  of  Cali- 
fornia are  much  the  same  as  the  political  in- 
stitutions of  every  other  State  in  the  Union  ;  nor 
are  the  people  of  California  vastly  dift'erent  in 
temperament  from  the  people  of  other  States. 
If  the  people  of  the  metropolis  of  California  by 
reason  of  all  that  has  been  written  of  them  of  late 
have  come  to  be  regarded  as  peculiarly  incor- 
rigible, singularly  insensible  to  their  own  interests, 
this  conception  on  examination  may  be  found  to 
be  somewhat  inaccurate.  While  there  was  much 
to  reprehend  in  the  conduct  of  the  people  of  San 
Francisco  during  the  turbulent  period  following 
the  earthquake  and  fire,  it  was  at  all  events  char- 
acteristic of  human  nature.  An  excited  populace, 
as  we  have  seen,  in  all  ages  and  countries,  displays 
the  same  aptitude  for  harsh  and  hazardous  ex- 
pedients, the  same  blindness  to  its  own  real 
interests,  the  same  liability  to  be  duped  by 
Pharisaism  masquerading  as  civic  righteousness. 
If  the  people  of  San  Francisco  are  desei-ving  of 
censure  it  is  not  for  the  coldness  which  they 
developed  toward  their  regenerators  but  rather 
for  the  duration  of  their  enthusiasm.  And  con- 
sidering all  the  circumstances  it  would  be  a  very 
harsh  judge  who  would  hold  them  blameworthy. 
All  that  the  people  of  San  Francisco  were  able 


4  THE    REGENERATORS 

to  perceive  was  the  obvious,  and  by  that  their 
enthusiasm  was  justified.  The  obvious  is  all  that 
any  populace  was  ever  able  to  perceive.  The 
obvious  in  San  Francisco  was  the  wrongdoing 
of  certain  officials  and  the  rightdoing  of  the  men 
who  volunteered  to  punish  them.  As  is  in- 
variably the  case  the  multitude  were  absorbed 
in  the  project  in  hand  and  insensible  of  the 
possibility  of  evil  consequences.  They  could  see 
the  proximate,  but  what  lay  dimly  in  the  distance 
was  beyond  their  range  of  vision.  It  would 
have  been  remarkable  had  it  been  otherwise. 
Many  men  above  the  average  in  intelligence  were 
no  better  ofif  than  the  multitude.  Some  very 
bright  magazine  writers  visited  San  Francisco 
during  the  Graft  Prosecution,  journalists  en- 
gaged in  supplying  people  with  emotions,  eager 
for  the  right  kind  of  material ;  but  they  were 
unable  to  stick  their  claws  into  reality.  Callous 
to  the  sublime  interest  of  the  story  that  lay  ready 
to  hand,  its  perplexities  they  never  sifted,  but 
accepted  the  reformers  at  the  reformers'  own 
appraisement,  and  wrote  about  them  from  but 
one  standpoint.  None  of  them  ever  thought 
of  viewing  the  struggle  from  the  other  angle ; 
yet  from  that  angle  could  have  been  seen  what 
was  really  interesting ;  nay,  what  was  really  ro- 
mantic. For  in  truth  what  is  instructive  is  not 
all  that  may  be  found  in  this  story  of  medieval 
passion,  possessing  as  it  does  all  the  interest  of 
a    fictitious    narrative,    and    exhibiting   so   many 


PROLOGUE  5 

strange  vicissitudes  that  it  may  indeed  pass  as  a 
romance.  The  crimes  of  the  grafters  and  what  is 
obvious  with  reference  to  the  prosecution  of  the 
grafters  afford  nothing  but  material  for  the  most 
commonplace  melodrama.  The  ineptitudes  and 
futile  machinations  of  the  men  who  prosecuted 
the  grafters,  and  their  doings  generally,  are  such 
as  to  seem  wholly  divorced  from  reality  and 
therefore  the  story  of  them,  the  portraiture  of  the 
strange,  the  odd,  the  incredible  has  something  of 
the  flavor  of  romance. 


Much  like  the  experience  of  France  after  the 
first  revolution  is  that  which  California  is  now 
having.  For  many  years  after  her  rivers  of 
blood  had  ceased  to  flow  nothing  happened  in 
France  that  was  not  directly  a  consequence  of 
her  extraordinary  political  upheaval.  Friend- 
ships, hatreds,  industrial  combinations,  the  shifts 
and  expedients  of  politicians,  experiments  and 
innovations — all  derived  their  inspiration  from 
one  capital  fact  which  had  completely  changed 
the  condition  of  life  and  given  new  impulses  to 
every  class  of  society.  So  it  is  today  in  Cali- 
fornia, where  the  people  of  the  metropolis  in 
a  moment  of  frantic  zeal  for  reform  wandered 
from  the  middle  course  of  feasibility  and  com- 
mon sense  and  assisted  in  the  perversion  of  the 
institutions  of  government.  The  whirligig  of 
time    is   bringing   in    its   revenges    in    California. 


6  THE    REGENERATORS 

Lasting-  hatreds  have  survived  the  abortive  work 
of  pseudo-regeneration,  giving  color  and  tone  to 
social  affairs,  industrial  transactions  and  political 
bargainings.  Feeling  on  both  sides  is  as  embit- 
tered as  were  the  feelings  of  the  people  of  Flor- 
ence in  the  days  of  the  Guelphs  and  the  Ghib- 
belines.  This  feud  had  its  origin  in  the  early 
days  of  the  reform  crusade  when  the  reformers, 
headstrong  and  haughty,  assumed  that  every- 
body who  disliked  their  methods  was  in  sympathy 
with  dishonesty.  They  were  intolerant  of  all 
criticism.  To  dissent  from  their  views  was  to 
merit  the  blackest  opprobrium.  They  swag- 
gered and  fumed,  and  called  names,  and  behaved 
very  much  as  though  they  were  sighing  for 
the  days  of  the  Inquisition.  This  bully  ism  was 
a  matter  of  policy.  For  notwithstanding  their 
extraordinary  political  power,  spite  of  their 
consciousness  of  the  justness  of  their  cause, 
they  seemed  to  feel  the  need  of  the  un- 
wavering approval  of  public  sentiment.  With  all 
the  machinery  of  government  in  their  hands  they 
were  not  satisfied.  The  weapon  of  public  opinion 
they  wished  to  wield  also.  So  the  slightest  adverse 
criticism  of  their  methods  they  bitterly  resented. 
They  insisted  that  everybody  who  favored  the 
regular  mode  of  procedure  in  criminal  cases  must 
be  regarded  as  an  enemy  of  civic  virtue.  They 
had  branding  irons  for  every  critic  who  had  the 
audacity  to  assert  the  right  of  free  speech,  which, 
to  say  the  least,  ought  to  have  been  considered 


PROLOGUE  7 

odd,  as  the  man  who  heheves  his  conduct  is  right 
is  not  intolerant  of  discussion  ;  he  is  confident  that 
the  more  it  is  discussed  the  more  true  it  will  be 
found  to  be.  But  this  was  not  the  philosophy  of 
the  regenerators.  To  silence  criticism  they  or- 
ganized a  body  which  they  called  the  League  of 
Justice,  and  intimated  that  summary  punishment 
might  be  inflicted  on  every  unfriendly  critic. 
Meetings  were  held  by  this  league  at  which  hired 
lawyers  and  clergymen  of  the  type  that  cultivates 
publicity  uttered  ominous  warnings  which  served 
to  imply  that  lynch  law  might  be  deemed  essential 
to  the  welfare  of  the  city.  Also  there  was  or- 
ganized the  Heney  Woman's  League  composed 
of  venerable  dames  whose  daily  appearance  in 
court  was  intended  to  impress  and  awe  the 
juries,  and  whose  manner  reminded  observers  of 
the  knitters  of  the  French  Revolution. 

In  spite  of  these  agencies  to  stifle  criticism,  in 
time  it  became  apparent  that  the  community  was 
losing  confidence  in  its  patriots,  who  at  length  hit 
upon  a  masterpiece  of  ingenuity  for  the  stemming 
of  the  tide :  they  decided  to  have  themselves  in- 
vestigated and  vindicated.  This  was  like  intro- 
ducing a  bit  of  comic  relief  to  leaven  the  sober- 
ness of  the  tragic  drama,  but  nobody  laughed. 
For  there  was  a  reign  of  terror  in  San  Francisco, 
and  in  those  parlous  times  a  joke  was  a  serious 
matter.  The  opponents  of  the  Graft  Prosecution 
perceiving  that  the  regenerators  were  skilled  in  the 
art  of  inventing  jokes  that  were  loaded,  deemed  it 


8  THE    REGENERATORS 

advisable  to  resist  appeals  to  their  risibles.  If 
the  patriots  themselves  laughed  it  was  only  in 
their  own  exclusive  society  after  the  cautious 
manner  of  the  ancient  augurs.  So  when  Mayor 
Taylor,  one  of  the  political  products  of  the 
prosecution,  announced  one  day  that  he  had  ap- 
pointed a  committee  of  seven  to  investigate  his 
discoverers  there  was  no  perceptible  increase  in 
the  gaiety  of  the  community.  Not  a  murmur  of 
derision  greeted  the  members  of  his  whitewash 
committee,  though  all  but  two  were  known  to 
be  warm  adherents  of  the  Graft  Prosecution. 
The  chairman  was  William  Denman,  a  young 
lawyer,  whose  father  had  been  a  political  protege 
of  one  of  the  millionaires  behind  the  prosecu- 
tion. Of  the  six  men  associated  with  him  on 
the  committee,  four  were  ardent  partisans  of 
the  ])rosecution.  Not  the  least  disinterested  of 
them  was  William  Kent,  a  millionaire  who  had 
contributed  generously  to  the  large  fund  formed 
to  defray  the  expense  of  civic  redemption,  and 
who  has  since  been  elected  to  Congress,  not  by 
virtue  of  the  record  he  made  as  a  regenerator  but 
rather  by  the  potency  of  the  bank  account  that 
was  in  evidence  during  his  campaign.  Air.  Kent 
was  a  member  of  the  League  of  Justice  at  the 
time  of  his  appointment  to  the  whitewash  com- 
mittee. Also  of  this  league  was  Father  D.  O. 
Crowley,  a  Catholic  priest,  appointed  to  the  com- 
mittee, presumably  to  impart  a  tone  of  impartial- 
ity. ■  Father    Crowley    was    on    terms    of    social 


PROLOGUE  9 

intimacy  with  members  of  the  reform  cabal. 
He  was  not  less  desirous  of  the  vindication  of 
the  regenerators  than  was  his  associate  Mr.  W. 
J.  French,  editor  of  an  ofificial  organ  of 
organized  labor.  In  time  these  men  produced 
a  coat  of  whitewash,  and  nobody  asked  why  it 
was  that  the  regenerators,  if  they  were  conscious 
of  their  purity  and  eager  for  investigation,  had 
not  invited  examination  at  the  hands  of  disin- 
terested citizens. 

Meanwhile  factional  strife  raged  with  great 
fury.  The  issue  between  the  regenerators  and 
their  critics  vibrated  in  every  heart  and  burned 
on  every  tongue.  Partisanship  was  iniiversal. 
As  time  ran  on  and  more  apparent  it  became 
that  the  means  employed  were  considerably  less 
unimpeachable  than  the  end  professed,  the  town 
came  to  be  divided  by  a  great  gulf  of  passion 
and  ])rejudice.  And  still  the  slightest  criticism 
brought  out  flaming  denunciation.  The  leading 
and  most  virulent  of  the  pro-prosecution  organs 
argued  that  the  weekly  papers  should  be  suj)- 
pressed.  Members  of  the  League  of  Justice 
visited  the  editors  of  these  ]Dapers  to  warn  and 
terrorize  them  in  the  hope  of  putting  an  end  to 
the  freedom  of  discussion.  By  the  pro-prose- 
cution organs  gall  and  spleen  were  poured  on  the 
heads  even  of  private  citizens,  whose  only  offense 
was  that  of  dissenting  from  views  which  the 
cabal  had  pronounced  orthodox.  Spleen  was 
everywhere  in  evidence.     Not  since  the  days  of 


10  THE    REGENERATORS 

the  fires  of  Smithfield  did  bigotry  throw  human 
nature  into  stronger  Hght  and  shade.  The 
feud  spread  over  the  whole  State,  and  even  now 
it  requires  but  a  zephyr  of  opinion  to  fan  the 
smoldering  fires  into  livid  flame.  In  the  metrop- 
olis, the  temperament  of  which  is  like  the  climate, 
cloudless  and  serene,  the  masses  have  put  the 
past  where  it  belongs.  They  are  preoccupied 
with  preparations  for  the  great  fair  in  1915  at 
w^hich  the  opening  of  the  Panama  Canal  is  to 
be  celebrated,  but  in  certain  quarters  at  brief  in- 
tervals there  is  a  recrudescence,  and  the  old  sore 
runs  again  much  to  the  annoyance  of  amiable 
citizens  whose  expostulations  are  in  vahi. 

If  nothing  but  this  feud  survived  the  Graft 
Prosecution  there  would  be  much  to  deplore, 
but  there  is  something  worse.  As  a  con- 
sequence of  the  extraordinary  drama  that  was 
played  in  the  metropolis,  demoralization  per- 
vades the  politics  of  the  whole  State,  and  what 
was  once  a  sane,  sober  and  conservative  common- 
wealth is  now  conspicuous  for  its  hysteria,  its 
new  fangled  ideals,  its  populistic  tendencies,  and 
its  passion  for  all  the  catholicons  prescribed  by 
the  Cleons  of  the  hour.  California  is  reputed  to 
be  suiTering  from  an  acute  attack  of  what  has 
come  to  be  known  as  Progressiveness.  The 
truth  is,  the  aftermath  of  the  Graft  Prosecution 
is  what  the  State  is  experiencing.  What  a  dis- 
tinguished Progressive  Senator  of  the  United 
States  aptly  described  as  "reform  run  mad"  in 


PROLOGUE  11 

California,  is  the  result  of  the  furious  vindictive- 
ness  of  the  men  who  were  thwarted  in  their 
efforts  to  reform  San  Francisco  by  convulsion. 
These  men  have  most  successfully  played  upon 
the  emotions  and  credulity  of  the  people  of  the 
whole  State.  And  to  this  day  the  regenerators 
have  many  defenders  in  California,  it  being  against 
human  nature  for  men  to  surrender  their  impas- 
sioned convictions,  to  admit  that  what  they  once 
approved  with  fury  in  the  midst  of  superheated 
disputation  was  inconsistent  with  principles  of 
decency  and  honesty.  Men  who  will  admit  there 
was  much  they  did  not  approve  will  be  careful 
to  add  that  as  the  Graft  Prosecution  was  con- 
ducted for  a  righteous  purpose  it  should  have 
had  the  sympathy  of  all  good  men  and  that  good 
men  should  palliate  what  evil  was  done.  These 
men,  persuaded  that  the  failure  of  the  Graft 
Prosecution  was  due  to  widespread  corruption 
in  politics,  supported  the  political  machine  of  the 
San  Francisco  regenerators  in  the  last  State  cam- 
paign, and  enabled  them  to  drive  the  veteran 
practical  politicians  out  of  office.  What  improve- 
ment the  new  machine  is  likely  to  make  is  a 
question  not  to  be  discussed  in  these  essays.  All 
that  is  here  intended  to  be  shown  is  that  the 
Graft  Prosecution  was  a  failure  because  it  de- 
served to  be,  and  that  we  may  justly  attribute 
to  its  leading  spirits  all  the  current  vagaries  of 
California  politics. 

California  is  todav  ruled  bv  the  cabal  that  con- 


12  THR    REGENERATORS 

ducted  the  Graft  FVosecution.  The  man  who  is 
now  Governor  of  the  State,  Hiram  Johnson,  was 
one  of  the  hired  attorneys  of  the  cabal.  One  of 
the  measures  which  he  put  through  a  servile 
legislature  embodies  an  amendment  to  the  Con- 
stitution providing  for  the  application  of  the 
recall  to  the  judiciary,  the  purpose  of  which  is  to 
punish  all  judges  who  were  not  susceptible  of 
intimidation  at  the  hands  of  the  prosecution  cabal. 
To  understand  how  this  man,  who,  but  a  year 
ago  was  a  criminal  lawyer  of  that  familiar  type 
that  haunts  the  criminal  courts  of  all  large  cities, 
won  the  confidence  of  the  people  of  California 
and  came  to  exercise  over  them  with  their  glad 
acquiescence  a  more  despotic  power  than  even 
President  Roosevelt  asserted  in  Washington,  one 
nuist  know  something  of  the  history  of  the  Graft 
Prosecution.  To  appreciate  the  policy  of  his 
Administration,  which  savors  of  nothing  so  much 
as  a  consuming  passion  for  revenge,  one  must 
know  something  of  the  performances  and  in- 
stincts of  the  men  who  spent  three  years  trying 
to  regenerate  San  Francisco. 

But  let  it  not  be  supposed  that  the  history 
of  the  Graft  Prosecution  is  exclusively  of 
political  interest.  It  will  be  found  interesting 
and  instructive  under  a  three-fold  aspect.  It 
has  a  scientific  interest,  a  moral  or  psychological . 
interest,  and  a  biographical  or  dramatic  in- 
terest. It  has  a  scientific  interest  inasmuch 
as    it    reveals    the    perversions    to    which    the 


PROLOGUE  13 

machinery  of  our  republican  government  is 
liable ;  a  moral  or  psychological  interest,  inas- 
much as  it  affords  glimpses  of  the  characters 
and  curious  tendencies  of  men  when  imbued  with 
great  zeal  and  convinced  that  their  conception  of 
the  greater  good  is  not  to  be  challenged,  their 
method  of  advancing  it  not  to  be  disputed ;  a 
dramatic  interest,  inasmuch  as  it  reveals  human 
character  and  abounds  in  incidents  and  situations 
that  have  a  poignant  effect  on  the  emotions. 


I 

BIRTH    OF    THE    REGENERATORS 

Hoiv    the    Prosecution     Was    Organised    and    the 
Gradual  Unfolding  of  Its  Plans 

At  the  time  of  the  San  Francisco  catastrophe 
the  municipal  government  was  in  the  hands  of 
a  notoriously  corrupt  set  of  officials.  The  mayor 
was  Eugene  Schmitz,  president  of  the  musicians' 
union,  beloved  of  organized  labor,  which  was  then, 
as  it  is  now,  strongly  intrenched  in  San  Fran- 
cisco. All  the  subordinate  public  officials  were 
his  puppets,  and  he  in  all  his  official  acts  was 
subject  to  the  guidance  and  dictation  of  Abraham 
Ruef,  a  lawyer  who  began  his  political  career 
as  an  anti-machine  reformer,  and  whose  in- 
fluence as  a  boss  was  the  source  of  his  pecuniary 
success  in  his  profession.  Long  before  the  fire 
it  was  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  in  San 
Francisco  that  the  public  service  was  corrupt. 
Mayor  Schmitz  had  been  long  under  suspicion. 
He  was  known  to  be  obedient  to  Abraham  Ruef. 
Yet  he  was  elected  mayor  three  times  in  suc- 
cession. It  is  remarkable  how  much  a  com- 
munity will  bear  in  patience  even  when  its  vital 
interests  are  involved.  The  people  of  San  Fran- 
cisco knew  they  were  governed  by  corrupt  men. 


BIRTH    OF    THE    REGENERATORS        IS 

and  they  were  complaisant.  The  feeling-  was 
widespread  that  the  condition  of  affairs  was  in- 
tolerable. Pint  it  was  tolerated.  Everybody  felt 
that  something-  ought  to  be  done,  and  as  usual 
what  was  everybody's  business  was  nobody's 
business.  After  the  fire  public  indignation  which 
had  been  simmering  for  months  suddenly  boiled 
over  at  the  discovery  that  apparently  with  the 
connivance  of  the  police  thieves  were  looting  the 
ruins  of  the  stricken  city.  At  this  propitious 
moment  was  published  the  news  that  several 
prominent  citizens  had  banded  themselves  to- 
gether to  undertake  the  work  of  civic  regenera- 
tion. They  were  hailed  as  redeemers.  Thus  the 
Graft  Prosecution  at  its  inception  was  a  most 
popular  enterprise. 

Months  passed  by,  and  nothing  was  accom- 
plished. The  people  were  becoming  apathetic 
and  hopeless.  At  length  a  -man  who  had  been 
on  intimate  terms  with  the  Administration,  and 
who  had  suffered  rebuke  and  rebuff  at  Ruef's 
hands,  secretly  volunteered  assistance  and  fur- 
nished information  which  enal)led  Fremont  Older, 
editor  of  the  Bulletin,  to  compel  the  co-operation 
of  a  confidential  agent  of  the  grafters.  This 
man  was  a  fugitive  from  justice  from  one  of 
the  middle  western  States.  He  was  living  in 
San  Francisco  under  an  assumed  name.  Threat- 
ened with  exposure,  he  agreed  to  assist  William  J. 
Burns,  chief  detective  of  the  prosecution  bureau, 
and  as  a  result  a  trap  was  baited  with  a  bribe. 


16  THE    REGENERATORS 

and  a  corrupt  supervisor  was  caught.  Prom- 
ised immunity,  he  made  confession  of  all  his 
crimes  and  implicated  his  accomplices.  Then 
the  people,  inflamed  with  rage,  were  clamorous 
for  speedy  justice.  Great  was  their  enthusiasm  for 
their  public  spirited  citizens.  Rudolph  Spreckels, 
William  J.  Burns  and  Francis  J.  Heney,  con- 
stituting the  head  and  front  of  the  reform  move- 
ment, were  the  heroes  of  the  hour.  The  whole 
city  was  at  their  feet.  Whatever  it  might  have 
pleased  them  to  propose  at  that  time,  howsoever 
extravagant,  the  whole  community  would  have 
approved  and  no  questions  would  have  been 
asked. 

The  Graft  Prosecution  was  unique  in  this, — 
as  a  private  cabal  it  exercised  the  sovereign  power 
of  a  municipality.  The  prerogative  of  this 
cabal  was  like  unto  that  of  the  \''enetian  Council 
of  Ten,  and  as  in  Venice  in  the  days  of  the  in- 
famous council,  the  history  of  San  I'Vancisco  in 
the  days  of  the  Graft  Prosecution  was  marked 
by  many  dramatic  and  some  tragic  episodes. 
The  atmosphere  was  somewhat  medieval.  For 
anybody  possessed  of  imagination  there  was 
romance  in  abundance  in  the  sensational  develop- 
ments that  followed  in  quick  succession.  And 
now  in  reviewing  the  strange  vicissitudes  of  that 
tempestuous  period  one  may  well  ask  whether  it 
might  not  have  been  far  better  for  the  people, 
not  only  of  San  Francisco  but  of  all  California, 
if  their  regenerators  had   followed  the  example 


BIRTH    OF    THE    REGENERATORS        17 

of  the  Vigilantes  of  '56.  For  the  Vigilantes  in- 
flicted no  injury  on  the  government;  they  made 
no  changes  in  its  machinery,  they  established  no 
vicious  precedents,  they  sinned  not  against  the 
administration  of  justice.  The  \'igilantes  were 
frankly  lawless.  They  ignored  the  law,  but  they 
did  not  debauch  it.  They  merely  defied  the  con- 
stituted authorities.  It  was  unnecessary  for  the 
regenerators  to  follow  their  example.  The  regen- 
erators controlled  the  constituted  authorities.  It 
was  their  misfortune  to  be  too  powerful.  Power, 
as  some  one  has  said,  is  like  wine — it  intoxicates, 
and  it  discovers  true  character.  It  either  ex- 
aggerates dignity  or  magnifies  meanness.  None 
but  a  saint  can  take  it  and  preserve  the  purity 
of  his  soul.  This  attribute  of  the  gods  vouch- 
safed the  regenerators,  played  havoc  with  their 
scruples.  And  how,  it  may  be  asked,  did  such 
things  happen  in  an  American  city  that  boasts 
a  free,  independent  and  vigilant  ])ress?  The  an- 
swer is  that  the  press  made  possible  all  that  hap- 
])ened.  De  Tocqueville  erred  when  lie  conceived 
that  a  free  press  in  America  could  never  do  any 
harm,  since  there  would  always  be  so  many  news- 
papers that  all  sides  of  every  question  would 
receive  free  discussion.  In  San  Francisco  the 
newspapers,  how  remarkable !  agreed  to  agree. 
And  what  is  stranger  still,  for  a  time  they  actually 
did  agree.  The  men  who  organized  to  prosecute 
grafters,  before  planting  their  batteries,  held 
a  council  at  which  they  took  the  editors  of  San 


18  THE    REGENERATORS 

Francisco  into  their  confidence.  Mr.  Rudolph 
Spreckels,  chief  financial  backer  of  the  enterprise, 
informed  the  representatives  of  the  Fourth 
Estate  that  as  a  public  spirited  citizen  he  was 
prepared  to  spend  a  large  sum  of  money  to 
purge  the  city  of  its  corruption,  but  realized  that 
the  consummation  devoutly  wished  by  all  good 
citizens  was  impossible  without  the  assistance 
of  the  press.  He  pointed  out  the  necessity  of 
getting  control  of  the  district  attorney's  office, 
the  district  attorney,  William  Langdon,  being  a 
novice  at  the  law  and  hardly  competent  to  handle 
so  big  a  project.  Besides  he  was  a  representa- 
tive of  the  party  in  power.  Mr.  Spreckels  deemed 
it  necessary  to  have  Francis  J.  Heney  appointed 
a  deputy  of  the  district  attorney  with  full  power 
to  act.  He  also  deemed  it  necessary  to  get  the 
right  kind  of  grand  jury,  one  that  would  be  very 
eager  to  put  the  rascals  into  jail. 

The  editors  applauded  the  Spreckels'  spirit, 
approved  the  Spreckels'  plans  and  gave  earnest 
assurance  of  their  support.  Then  was  opened 
the  campaign  for  civic  decency.  District  At- 
torney Langdon  was  at  this  moment  a  candidate 
for  governor  on  William  R.  Hearst's  Independ- 
ence League  ticket.  Corruption  in  municipal 
office  was  not  receiving  any  attention  from  him. 
He  was  preoccupied  with  a  somewhat  preposter- 
ous ambition.  Summoned  from  the  interior  of 
the  State  by  the  editor  of  the  Examiner,  he  was 
told  what  was  wanted.     He  was  not  at  all  in- 


BIRTH    OF    THE    REGENERATORS        19 

clined  to  obey.  It  was  necessary  to  hold  two  or 
three  sessions  with  him  to  convince  him  of  the 
advisabihty  of  making'  Heney  his  deputy.  His 
campaign  manag'er,  Joseph  J.  Dwyer,  who  shortly 
afterward  loomed  up  as  one  of  the  string'  of 
counsel  employed  by  the  Spreckels  sanhedrim, 
threatened  to  quit  his  job  if  the  appointment  of 
Heney  were  not  made.  The  editor  of  the  Ex- 
aminer also  made  a  threat  or  two,  and  Langdon 
finally  saw  the  light,  and  thereafter  in  all  the 
State  there  was  not  a  more  vociferous  patriot. 

Francis  J.  Heney  was  no  ordinary  assistant  to 
the  district  attorney.  Ostensibly  a  public  official, 
in  reality  he  was  the  ag;ent  of  a  little  coterie  of. 
private  citizens.  Before  the  public  he  posed  as 
a  volunteer  actuated  by  zeal  for  the  public  good. 
He  so  proclaimed  himself  in  the  press  and  on 
the  bema ;  for  be  it  understood  during  the  early 
stages  of  the  Graft  Prosecution  there  was  a 
steady  copious  flow  of  oratory.  At  brief  in- 
tervals appeals  were  addressed  to  the  passions 
and  prejudices  of  the  multitude,  and  Mr.  Heney 
was  very  active  exhorting  the  public  to  give  him 
their  sympathy  and  support,  and  promising  to 
send  to  jail  certain  men,  unindicted  and  un- 
charged, whom  he  vituperated  and  vilified.  To 
the  great  body  of  citizens  from  which 
jurors  were  to  be  drawn  this  representative 
of  the  department  of  justice  addressed  his 
burning  philippics,  exhausting  the  vocabulary  of 
personal    abuse    and    indulging    in    coarse    and 


20  THE    REGENERATORS 

brutal  tirades.  The  supposition  being  that  his 
services  to  the  civic  cause  were  given  gratu- 
itously, naturally  his  perfervid  oratory  was  im- 
pressive. It  was  regarded  as  the  ebullition  of 
righteous  indignation,  and  it  was  not  until  the 
prosecution  had  dragged  along  for  nearly  three 
vears  that  Heney's  emotions  were  accounted  for  by 
anybody  on  any  hypothesis  different  from  the  one 
that  he  was  pleased  to  have  the  people  accept. 
Rudolph  Spreckels  having  been  required  to  pro- 
duce a  statement  of  the  moneys  he  had  expended 
in  financing  the  prosecution  some  interesting 
facts  were  brought  to  light.  The  statement 
showed  that  Heney  had  received  $23,828.22, 
not  as  a  fee,  however,  but  for  "office  expenses." 
It  also  showed  that  his  partner,  Cobb,  who 
had  played  a  very  inconspicuous  part,  and 
who  formed  the  partnership  with  Heney  at 
the  inception  of  the  prosecution  for  the  purpose, 
so  it  was  said,  of  attending  to  civil  business,  had 
received  $25,000.  Next  on  the  list  was  J.  J. 
Dwyer,  the  attorney  who  managed  District  At- 
torney Langdon's  campaign  for  governor.  It 
developed  that  he  had  become  a  "silent"  partner 
of  the  firm  of  Heney  &  Cobb.  Dwyer  was  paid 
$13,400.  There  was  also  an  item  of  $11,000 
paid  to  Hiram  Johnson,  for  legal  services, 
the  same  Hiram  Johnson  who  was  elected 
governor  on  his  record  as  a  civic  patriot. 
All  these  men  were  passionate  prosecutors. 
They   were  passionate  in   court,  and  they  were 


P.IRTF]    Ol-    Till'.    l^tl'.Cl'.Nl'.RATORS        21 

passionate  on  the  ])latf()nn  when  pleading 
either  the  cause  of  the  Graft  Prosecution  or 
its  pohtical  candidates.  And  their  oratory  was 
effective  because  nobody  suspected  that  they  were 
being  paid.  Indeed  they  didn't  appear  to  sus- 
pect it  themselves,  for  their  uniform  retort  to 
every  criticism  against  the  Graft  -Prosecution  was 
that  it  had  been  purchased  by  the  interests. 

So  Mr.  Heney,  as  we  have  seen,  was  quite 
different  from  an  ordinary  assistant  to  a  district 
attorney.  He  occupied  a  curiously  anomalous 
position,  all  the  facets  of  which  were  not  visible 
at  first  glance ;  not,  indeed,  till  after  he  had  been 
pounding  away  at  the  so-called  higher-ups  for 
about  three  years.  For  instance  his  official  con- 
nection with  the  federal  government  was  a  most 
belated  discovery.  It  was  known,  to  be  sure, 
that  President  Roosevelt  was  in  sympathy  with 
the  Graft  Prosecution.  His  sympathy  he  vin- 
dicated from  time  to  time  with  letters  and  tele- 
grams to  Rudolph  Spreckels.  solicited,  presum- 
ably for  public  consumption  in  pursuance  of  the 
policy  to  keep  public  sentiment  at  white  heat.  It 
was  reported  that  he  had  been  promised  the 
head  of  Mr.  E.  H.  Harriman  on  a  charger, 
and  the  Bulletin  announced  that  Harriman 
would  be  indicted.  Detective  William  J.  Burns 
of  the  secret  service,  it  was  known,  was  Presi- 
dent Roosevelt's  contribution  to  the  cause  of 
virtue,  but  that  Heney  was  on  the  pay-roll  of 
the   federal   Department  of  Justice   most  of  the 


22  THE    REGENERATORS 

time  that  he  was  procuring  indictments  from 
the  grand  jury  of  a  State,  was  one  of  the  precious 
esoteric  secrets  that  constituted  the  soul  of  cer- 
tain great  designs  as  "mysterious  as  the  coy 
fountains  of  the  Nile." 

When  Heney  attached  himself  to  private  in- 
terests in  San  Francisco  it  was  supposed  that 
his  connection  with  the  federal  government  had 
ended.  It  was  supposed  also  that  his  income 
from  all  sources  had  ceased,  and  that  conse- 
quently he  was  a  genuine  self-sacrificing  patriot, 
which  supposition  naturally  went  a  long  way 
toward  inspiring  public  confidence  and  the  senti- 
ments of  gratitude  and  esteem.  His  self-sac- 
rifice was  well  advertised  by  the  pro-prosecution 
press.  It  was  frequently  alluded  to  as  proof  of 
his  disinterested  devotion  to  the  public  weal. 
The  Bulletin  went  so  far  as  to  compassionate 
him  on  the  rapid  decline  of  a  bank  account  for 
which  there  was  no  recruiting,  and  finally  that 
sympathetic  journal  called  for  subscriptions  to 
a  Heney  fund,  hoping  thus  to  keep  the  wolf 
away  from  the  Heney  door.  It  was  a  little 
astonishing,  therefore,  and  also  gratifying,  to 
learn,  after  nearly  three  years  had  gone  by,  that 
at  least  Mr.  Heney  had  no  ofiice  expenses  to 
defray,  Mr.  Spreckels  having  shouldered  that 
burden,  which  amounted  to  $500  a  month.  It 
was  still  more  astonishing  when  in  the  archives 
at  Washington  was  found  a  bundle  of  vouchers 
and    other    readable    matter    conclusive    of    pro- 


BIRTH    OF    THE    REGENERATORS        23 

tracted  and  profitable  relations  between  the  De- 
partment of  Justice  and  the  San  Francisco 
prosecutor.  From  the  Washington  records  it 
appears  that  Heney's  arrangements  with  At- 
torney-General Bonaparte  as  to  compensation  for 
services  were  singularly  indefinite.  Heney  was 
first  employed  as  a  federal  attorney  in  1904,  and 
his  employment  ended  in  January,  1907,  when  he 
became  an  assistant  to  the  district  attorney  of 
San  Francisco.  For  his  services  as  a  federal 
attorney  he  received  $69,000.  Of  this  amount 
$33,000  was  paid  after  his  resignation.  It  has 
been  explained  that  several  amounts  which  were 
paid  him  during  the  years  1907,  1908  and  1909  on 
the  authorization  of  President  Roosevelt's  at- 
torney-general were  "deferred  payments."  Why 
these  payments  should  have  been  deferred  has 
never  been  explained.  Admitting  that  they  were 
for  services  rendered  in  the  years  1904,  1905  and 
1906,  as  asserted,  then  Heney  was  paid  more 
than  $20,000  a  year,  though  during  a  great  part 
of  the  period  of  his  employment  he  was  attend- 
ing to  private  practice  in  San  Francisco.  The 
facts  may  be  as  Heney's  defenders  would  have 
us  believe,  but  there  is  certainly  ground  for  the 
suspicion  that  was  voiced  in  San  Francisco,  the 
suspicion  that  the  "deferred  payments"  were  for 
services  rendered  to  the  people  of  the  State  ot 
California  as  well  as  for  services  rendered  to 
the  peoplf'  of  the  United  States.  At  any  rate  it 
is  evident  that   such  might  have  been  the  case. 


24  THE    REGENERATORS 

and  that  there  was  estabHshed  in  this  instance 
a  precedent  pregnant  with  infinite  possibiHties, 
especially  for  a  chief  magistrate  of  the  Roosevelt 
temperament,  who  might  be  inclined  to  employ 
for  his  private  ends  the  grand  juries  of  the 
several  States. 

At  once  a  federal  and  a  State  prosecutor 
and  the  representative  of  the  men  composing  the 
reform  cabal,  Mr.  Heney  assumed  absolute  con- 
trol of  an  important  branch  of  the  juridical 
department  of  the  State  government.  He  was 
given  full  power  to  act;  to  exercise  his  judgment 
and  his  discretion  in  all  matters  however  remotely 
or  intimately  connected  with  the  main  business 
in  hand.  But  of  course  he  always  acted  with  due 
deference  to  the  wishes  of  the  men  by  whom  he 
was  employed,  especially  with  due  deference  to 
the  wishes  of  Mr.  Spreckels,  or  "Citizen"  Spreck- 
els,  as  he  was  hailed  by  the  courtiers  nearest  the 
throne. 

Through  the  juridical  department  the  prose- 
cutors were  soon  able  to  seize  all  other  depart- 
ments of  government.  For  a  short  time  Schmitz 
held  onto  the  office  of  mayor.  He  might  have 
been  removed  by  civil  process ;  otherwise  he  could 
hold  his  office  until  convicted  of  a  crime.  At 
the  request  of  a  committee  of  the  civic  bodies  he 
agreed  one  day  to  resign  with  the  understanding 
that  this  committee  should  appoint  his  successor. 
When  the  committee  submitted  the  proposal  to 
"Citizen"  Spreckels  that  gentleman  flared  up  like 


BIRTH    OF    THE    REGENERATORS        25 

a  turkey-cock.  The  sug'g'estion  was  in  the  nature 
of  lese  majesty.  Mr.  Spreckels  wished  it  to  be 
distinctly  understood  that  he  was  the  head  and 
front  of  the  work  of  civic  redemption.  What 
right  had  anybody  else  to  form  plans  not  in  har- 
mony with  his  ?  Such  ])resumption  was  intoler- 
able. It  was  a  sign  of  some  kind  of  infernality. 
''Citizen"  Spreckels  pronounced  the  committee 
corrupt  hirelings  of  the  Southern  Pacific  Com- 
pany, and  it  was  immediately  dissolved  by  the 
chairman,  Charles  Slack,  a  lawyer,  an  ex-judge, 
a  member  of  the  board  of  regents  of  the  State 
university,  a  gentleman  whose  reputation  in  all 
the  length  and  breadth  of  California  is  without 
stain,  whose  motives  have  in  no  other  instance 
been  impugned.  But  in  those  days  to  have  one's 
motives  impugned  by  "Citizen"  Spreckels  was  al- 
most tantaiuount  to  being  hurled  from  on  high — 

Tf)  grinning-  scorn  ;i  sacril'ice, 
And  endless  infamy! 

"Citizen"  Spreckels  went  about  the  regeneration 
of  San  Francisco  in  his  own  way.  He  had 
Mayor  Schmitz  convicted  of  a  crime  that  has 
since  turned  out  to  be  no  crime  at  all,  and  then 
he  filled  the  vacancy.  With  whom  do  you  sup- 
I'jose?  Presumably  with  some  worthy  citizen. 
Quite  to  the  contrary ;  with  one  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  corrupt  board  of  supervisors.  These 
self-confessed  grafters  were  still  in  office.  The}- 
were    doing    business    at    ihe    old     stand;    and 


26  THE    REGEXERATORS 

from  test'mory  since  given  in  court  it  was 
learned  that  they  were  still  grafting  in  the 
old  way,  not  with  the  mediation  of  Ruef,  but  in- 
directly under  the  auspices  of  the  Graft  Prosecu- 
tion. It  was  also  learned  that  their  retention  of 
offce  was  in  accordance  with  their  agreement 
w  ith  Spreckels,  who.  it  was  testified  by  one  of  his 
own  witnesses,  was  so  generous  as  to  give  them 
the  assurance  that  they  might  even  banish  the 
fears  inspired  by  rumor  that  an  attempt  would 
be  made  to  compel  them  to  disgorge  their  booty. 
And  it  was  by  these  grafters  in  office  that  a 
mavor  was  appointed  at  the  instigation  of 
"Citizen"  Spreckels,  the  individual  being  one  of 
their  own  number — Supervisor  Boxton,  a  self- 
confessed  criminal  like  the  rest. 

Here  indeed  apparently  was  a  curious  state  of 
affairs ;  nay,  in  the  opinion  of  the  superficial  ob- 
server, a  shocking  state  of  afifairs.  And  superfi- 
cial observers  were  not  wanting  at  the  time  to 
censure  the  Graft  Prosecution  for  complicity  in 
this  species  of  government.  But  critics  were 
promptly  overwhelmed  with  abuse.  And  the 
regenerators  had  a  plausible  excuse  for  their  con- 
duct ready  to  hand.  They  explained  that  the 
grafters  were  mere  nominal  functionaries — "good 
dogs"  as  they  described  them — "who  did  as  they 
were  told."  .  And  this  was  doubtless  the  truth. 
But  this  truth  in  the  course  of  time  like  other 
truths  carried  with  it  something  of  opprobrium ; 
so  much  so  that  the  prosecutors  desired  it  to  be 


BIRTH    OF    THE    REGENERATORS        27 

forgotten.  The  truths  of  the  Graft  Prosecution 
accumulated  by  slow  degrees.  The  light  in  which 
these  truths  appeared  separately  was  quite  differ- 
ent from  the  light  in  which  they  were  grouped 
as  the  plot  of  the  drama  approached  the  catas- 
trophe. And  so  it  was  that  the  graft  prosecutors 
became  rather  fearful  of  recapitulation.  On  the 
trial  of  Patrick  Calhoun,  president  of  the  United 
Railroads,  when  Supervisor  Nicholas,  speak- 
ing of  his  "good  dog"  days,  said  that  he 
voted  as  he  was  told,  the  special  prosecutor 
objected  to  the  testimony  saying,  "According  to 
this  class  of  testimony  the  prosecution  might  be 
made  out  greater  criminals  than  these  people." 
The  frankness  of  Mr.  Heney  on  this  occasion 
was  unprecedented.  Considering  the  testimony 
that  followed,  it  was  inept.  This  testimony  was 
that  Supervisor  Gallagher  in  the  "good  dog"  days 
acted  as  a  messenger,  carrying  instructions  from 
the  district  attorney's  office  to  the  supervisors. 
And  Nicholas  was  asked :  "Was  it  not  said  to  you 
by  Mr.  Gallagher  that  you  were  to  remain  in 
office  and  vote  as  you  were  told?"  The  witness 
answered,  "Yes,  sir." 

"And  you  voted  as  you  were  told?"  was  the 
next  question. 

The  answer:  "Whatever  Gallagher  told  us  to 
do  after  that  we  pretty  near  done  it." 

So  we  see  that  this  private  cabal  exercised  the 
sovereign  power  of  the  numicipality.  First  they 
took  charge  of  the  district  attorney's  office,  and 


28  THE    REGENERATORS 

behind  them  was  the  power  of  the  united  daily 
press.  Then  they  took  charge  of  the  mayor's 
office  and  of  the  whole  leg-islative  body  of  the 
city.  In  time  this  state  of  affairs  became  ob- 
noxious. The  Examiner  (W.  R.  Hearst's  paper) 
and  the  Chronicle  began  mildly  to  complain. 
They  perceived  that  the  reformers  were  "doing 
politics."  But  the  Bulletin  remained  faithful  and 
steadfast,  echoing  every  day  the  sentiments 
of  the  prosecutors,  and  drooling  venom  on 
everybody  that  dared  dissent.  The  Call  also  was 
faithful,  which  was  to  be  expected,  the  proprietor 
being  John  D.  Spreckels,  who  was  always  the 
obedient  son  of  his  father  Claus  Spreckels. 

After  several  months  of  "good  dog"  rule,  and 
just  at  the  opening  of  the  municipal  campaign, 
the  grafting  board  of  supervisors  still  in  office,  at 
the  behest  of  the  prosecution  cabal,  elected  to 
the  office  of  mayor  Dr.  Edward  R.  Taylor,  a 
political  associate  of  James  D.  Phelan.  Taylor 
increased  the  power  of  his  sponsors  by  appoint- 
ing William  Biggy  chief  of  police.  Biggy  was 
the  elisor  who  had  charge  of  Abe  Ruef  in  a 
private  prison  while  the  boss  was  undergoing  the 
"third  degree"  night  and  day.  Biggy  was  also  the 
elisor  who  had  charge  of  the  Schmitz  jury.  It 
was  expected  that  through  him  Detective  Burns 
would  direct  the  affairs  of  the  ])olice  department. 
And  l)urns  was  permitted  to  direct  tlie  depart- 
ment for  the  purposes  of  the  Graft  Prosecution 
up  to  a  certain  point,  and  then  Biggy  for  proving 


BIRTH    OF    THE    REGENERATORS        29 

recalcitrant  was  hounded  by  the  pro-prosecution 
press  to  the  end  of  his  days.  His  death  was  one 
of  the  tragedies  of  the  Graft  Prosecution,  and 
will  be  dealt  with  in  another  chapter. 

Now  with  all  this  pow'er  in  the  hands  of  a 
private  cabal,  and  with  two  complaisant  judges  on 
the  bench  by  whom  all  the  indicted  men  were 
to  be  tried,  it  would  seem  that  the  cards  were 
stacked  for  almost  any  kind  of  achievement.  And 
yet  the  Graft  Prosecution  was  a  failure !  At 
the  end  of  four  years  the  regenerators  are  able 
to  point  to  but  two  achievements — the  routing 
of  the  grafters  ( for  which  they  are  really  deserv- 
ing of  great  credit)  and  the  imprisonment  of  Abe 
Ruef.  But  neither  of  these  achievements  from 
their  standpoint  is  a  triumph,  since  their  darling 
aim  was  the  punishment  of  the  higher-ups,  the 
putative  source  of  all  corruption. 


II 


MEN    AND    MOTIVES 

A  Study  of  the  Leading  Regenerators  and  of  Their 

Attitude  Toward  the  Chief  Grafter  and 

Some  of  the  Higher-ups 

A  familiar  maxim  tells  us  that  to  accomplish 
a  great  good  men  may  be  justified  in  doing  a  lit- 
tle wrong.  On  this  principle  the  apologists  of 
the  Graft  Prosecution  have  palliated  what  they 
could  not  applaud.  They  palliated  by  wholesale 
and  blindly.  The  criticism  to  be  made  of  the 
Graft  Prosecution  is  that  it  did  neither  great  good 
nor  little  wrong.  And  if  anything  is  to  be  said 
in  extenuation  of  its  excesses  it  must  be  on  the 
theory  that  the  regenerators  were  carried  away 
by  misguided  zeal.  Most  of  the  abuse  of  power 
in  this  world  can  be  traced  to  persons  who  be- 
lieved themselves  right.  But  whatever  "Citizen" 
Spreckels  and  his  associates  thought  of  them- 
selves, it  must  be  confessed  that  they  inspired 
strong  faith  in  their  rectitude  of  purpose,  for 
the  people  of  San  Francisco  were  quiescent  to- 
ward them  even  after  ceasing  to  approve  their 
methods.  At  the  same  time  it  should  be  ex- 
plained that  only  in  small  quantities  did  the  truth 
percolate  through  the  screen  of  secrecy  erected 
by  the  regenerators.     There  was  much  that  was 


MEN     AND    MOTIVES  31 

esoteric  in  their  doin^^s.  I, ike  tlie  priests  of 
ancient  religious  cults  the\  felt  that  the  strouu: 
lueat  of  orthodoxy  was  not  for  the  common 
herd.  When  the  scheme  of  re<lem])tion  was 
vouns^  noh()d\'  outside  the  magic  circle  was 
vouchsafed  an  inkling"  as  to  wholesale  immunity 
for  grafters,  if  like  a  l^olt  from  the  blue  the 
new  s  had  come  dial  all  the  corrupt  ofificials  were 
to  be  set  free  and  that  punishment  was  to  be 
reserved  only  for  the  men  who  had  contributed 
the  spoils,  it  would  have  shocked  and  perhaps 
caused  a  revulsion  of  public  sentiment.  At  first 
the  public  was  told  that  none  btit  the  supervisors 
were  to  be  granted  immunity,  which  was  con- 
sidered bad  enough,  liut  the  fact  flTatthe  regen- 
erators were  disposed  to  grant  Ruef  and  Schmitz 
immunity  was  not  divulged.  Well  was  it  under- 
stood that  such  an  act  of  generosity  would  pro- 
voke great  indignation.  Not  till  the  graft  cases 
were  brought  to  trial  was  it  learned  that  Ruef 
and  Schmitz  were  privileged  to  accept  immunity. 
This  information  was  obtained  from  James  Gal- 
lagher, the  chief  witness  for  the  prosecution, 
whom  Rudolph  Spreckels,  the  dispenser  of  im- 
munity, informed  that  the  sentiment  of  the 
jirosecution  was  that  the  only  real  criminals  were 
the  officers  of  the  public  service  corporations  who 
had  tempted  and  corrupted  the  servants  of  the 
people. 

Not     the     district     attorney     but     Rudolph 
Spreckels,    a    private    citizen,    was    the    per- 


32  THE    REGENERATORS 

son  who  conducted  negotiations  and  pledged 
the  faith  of  the  constituted  authorities.  And 
Rudolph  Spreckels,  according  to  Gallagher's 
testimony,  purposed  making  use  of  Ruef 
and  Schmitz  as  well  as  of  the  supervisors, 
and  letting  them  go.  "He  told  me,"  Gallagher 
added,  "that  the  public  service  corporations  were 
his  objective  point."  In  what  degree,  in  Air. 
Spreckels'  opinion.  Abraham  Ruef  was  a  victim 
of  temptation  may  be  learned  from  the  transcript 
of  testimony  in  the  case  of  Patrick  Calhoun. 
The  testimony  bearing  on  this  point  was  given  by 
Mr.  Spreckels  himself.  He  admitted  that  he 
formed  Ruef's  acquaintance  years  before  the 
opening  of  the  prosecution.     He  said : 

"Ruef  called  at  my  office  when  the  city  was 
about  to  issue  bonds  and  asked  me  if  I  would  get 
together  a  syndicate  of  capitalists  for  the  pur- 
pose of  bidding  on  those  bonds.  I  think  that  was 
around  1901  or  '02.  Ruef  said  that  he  would 
guarantee  that  if  I  did  get  such  a  syndicate  "up 
our  bid  would  be  a  successful  bid,  and  that  we 
would  not  be  obliged  to  bid  above  par.  I  asked 
him  how  he  purposed  to  carry  that  out,  and  he 
said,  'Why,  that  is  a  simple  matter.  You  know 
my  connection  with  the  labor  unions  and  the 
Labor  Union  party,  and  just  about  the  time 
that  the  bids  are  to  come  in  I  will  arrange  to  tie 
up  this  town,  and  we  will  have  the  biggest  strike 
that  the  community  has  ever  known,  and  I  would 
like  to  see  any  of  your  capitali.stic  friends  bid  on 


MEN    AND    MOTIVES  53 

the  bonds  under  those  circumstances,  excepting 
yourself  and  those  that  are  in  the  know.'  " 

Asjced  if  Ruef  referred  specifically  to  the  street 
railroad  system,  Mr.  Spreckels  made  reply  that 
he  did. 

"You  believed,"  said  the  attorney  for  the  de- 
fendant, "did  you  not,  that  ]\Ir.  Ruef  who  offered 
to  call  a  strike  with  the  accompanying  bloodshed 
and  to  tie  up  the  town  from  one  end  of  it  to 
the  other,  that  you  would  give  him  immunity  in 
order  to  get  his  testimony  against  Mr.  Calhoun 
if  it  could  be  done,  did  you  not?" 

And  Mr.  Spreckels  gave  this  answer:  "Mr. 
Ruef  did  not  commit  the  crime  of  calling  the 
strike." 

Ruef  did  not  commit  the  crime  because  the 
virtuous  Mr.  Spreckels,  whom  he  had  foolishly 
considered  so  avaricious  as  to  be  disposed  to 
enter  into  so  vicious  a  conspiracy  rejected  the 
proposal. 

In  justice  to  Mr.  Spreckels  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  whatever  might  have  been  his  con- 
ception of  the  relations  existing  between  Abe 
Ruef  and  the  public  service  corporations,  it  is 
not  improbable  that  he  regarded  the  supervisors 
as  victims  of  temptation.  Furthermore  it  is  not 
to  be  denied  that  much  is  to  be  said  in  favor  of 
his  theory  of  the  desirability  of  punishing  the 
so-called  higher-ups.  At  any  rate  it  was  vigor- 
ously supported  by  the  philosophy  of  his  as- 
sociates,   the   new    philosophy    preached    in    San 


34  THE    REGENERATORS 

Francisco  for  the  first  time  in  the  world's  history, 
the  philosophy  that  teaches  how  venial  is  the 
transgression  of  the  public  servant  who  taJ<es  a 
bribe  compared  with  that  of  the  man  who  bribes 
him.  Strong-  in  their  faith  in  this  philosophy, 
pro-prosecution  editors  moralized  on  the  sad 
predicament  of  the  poor  men  who  had  been 
seduced  by  the  predatory  rich.  They  felt  very 
sorry  for  the  grafters,  miserable  wretches  that 
they  were,  victims  of  an  irresistible  appeal  to  a 
primal  passion.  To  this  curious  doctrine  many 
converts  were  made,  for  the  reason,  perhaps,  that 
the  newspapers  recommended  it  as  though  they 
had  received  it  from  Heaven.  The  average 
citizen,  who  had  twice  elected  Eugene  Schmitz  to 
office,  knowing  him  to  be  the  puppet  of  a  man 
who  was  acting  as  attorney  not  only  for  public 
service  corporations  but  for  saloon-keepers,  con- 
tractors and'  every  individual  who  had  any  busi- 
ness relations  with  the  municipal  government — 
this  average  citizen,  artfully  suggestionized, 
was  in  sympathy  with  the  grafters  and  greatly 
incensed  against  the  bad  rich  men  who  had 
seduced  them. 

Doubtless  the  public  service  corporations  were 
Mr.  Spreckels's  "objective  point"  at  the  inception 
of  the  enterprise,  but  the  history  of  that  enter- 
prise shows  that  its  founders  devoted  nearly  all 
their  energies  to  the  prosecution  of  the  officers 
of  one  particular  public  service  corporation — the 
I'nited   Railroads.     And  the   records   show   that 


MEN    AND    MOTIVES  35 

toward  the  officers  of  at  least  one  corporation 
the  prosecution  was  exceedingly  placable.  That 
one  was  the  Home  Telephone  Company,  the  of- 
ficers of  which  appeared  to  be  in  an  extremely 
bad  box.  They  had  not  had  Ruef  on  their  pay- 
roll. But  they  wanted  a  franchise  and  bought 
it  outright.  The  supervisors  had  previously  re- 
ceived money  from  an  agent  of  the  Pacific  States 
Telephone  and  Telegraph  Company,  which  had 
been  paid  to  them  to  induce  them  to  prevent 
competition  by  denying  the  petition  of  the 
Home  Telephone  Company.  But  the  supervisors, 
poor,  miserable  victims  of  plutocrat  temptation, 
wouldn't  "stay  bought."  A  representative  of  the 
Home  Telephone  Company  was  indicted,  but 
was  never  arrested.  No  attempt  was  made  to 
find  him.  There  is  but  one  explanation  of  this 
negligence,  and  this  explanation  is  only  a  matter 
of  conjecture.  One  of  the  officers  of  the  com- 
pany was  a  relative  by  marriage  of  a  justice  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State,  and  the  prosecu- 
tion, it  has  been  conjectured,  realized  the  import- 
ance of  having  that  court  acquiesce  in  the  strange 
kind  of  justice  that  was  being  administered  by 
its  puppets  in  the  trial  courts.  This  explanation 
may  not  be  correct,  but  it  is  the  one  that  was 
generally  accepted  by  hostile  critics  of  the  meth- 
ods and  interpreters  of  the  motives  of  the 
prosecution. 


36  THE    REGENERATORS 

As  it  is  from  the  motives  of  men  tliat  actions 
receive  their  color  and  character,  perhaps  if  all 
the  mainsprings  of  the  prosecutors'  conduct  were 
visible  we  might  be  less  inclined  to  censure.  It 
may  be  well  therefore  before  resuming  the  thread 
of  this  narrative  to  inquire  whether  there  is  any 
reason  for  suspecting  that  Mr.  Spreckels  and  his 
associates,  while  especially  desirous  of  convict- 
ing the  officials  of  the  United  Railroads,  were 
indifferent  to  the  fate  of  others.  Now  it  may  be 
easier  to  estimate  their  motives  if  we  know  some- 
thing of  their  antecedents.  When  a  good  man 
falls  into  evil  it  is  deemed  proper  to  allow  him 
the  benefit  of  his  past  record  and  to  be  careful 
to  remember  it  when  interpreting  his  later  actions. 
The  same  principle  may  be  applied  to  the  man 
who  asserts  a  claim  to  our  confidence  and  our 
admiration.  It  is  not  to  be  argued  that  the  mo- 
tives of  all  the  men  behind  the  Graft  Prosecution 
were  wholly  bad.  The  paramount  motive  may 
have  been  the  purging  of  a  city  steeped  in  cor- 
ruption. But  as  in  the  case  of  the  conspirators 
who  murdered  Caesar  it  maybedoubted  whether 
all  were  actuated  by  zeal  for  the  public  good. 
When  the  motives  of  the  men  behind  the  Graft 
Prosecution  were  first  challenged  those  men  took 
the  position  that  motives  were  of  no  consequence. 
Of  course  they  affirmed  the  purity  of  their  mo- 
tives, but  at  the  same  time  they  pointed  out  that 
as  it  was  merely  their  purpose  to  give  men  ac- 
cused of  crime  the  benefit  of  trial  by  jury  it  did 


MEN    AND    MOTIVES  37 

not  matter  whether  their  civic  patriotism  was 
entirely  free  from  alloy.  If,  said  they,  the  accused 
are  not  guilty  they  will  have  abundant  opportunity 
to  prove  their  innocence,  the  court  will  safeguard 
their  rights.  At  first  blush  this  reasoning  seems 
plausible.  Not  so  when  one  stops  to  consider 
certain  matters  of  some  importance :  that  these 
zealous  men  had  the  support  of  the  united  daily 
press ;  that  they  were  permitted  to  impanel  a 
grand  jury  and  direct  it  as  they  saw  fit,  and  that 
besides  having  absolute  control  of  the  district 
attorney's  office  and  the  police  department  they 
enjoyed  such  confidential  relations  with  the  two 
judges  to  whom  all  the  so-called  graft  cases  were 
assigned  for  trial,  that  in  the  course  of  time  the 
judges  became  frank  partisans  of  the  Graft 
Prosecution  in  all  political  manoeuvres  for  the 
retention  of  power.  Now  if  these  men  were 
animated  by  sinister  motives,  even  an  innocent 
man  might  have  reason  to  dread  a  trial  at  their 
hands. 

So  whilst  their  motives  may  be  estimated 
with  some  degree  of  accuracy  from  their  acts, 
meantime  let  us  scrutinize  the  men  themselves 
that  we  may  be  better  able  to  judge  whether  they 
would  be  likely  to  abuse  the  great  power  which 
they  possessed.  Foremost  among  these  men  is 
Mr.  Rudolph  Spreckels,  a  young  millionaire,  who, 
previous  to  his  appearance  in  the  role  of  civic 
regenerator,  had  never  taken  the  trouble  to  cast 
his  vote  at  an  election.     Civic  patriotism  was  in 


/:j 


38  THE    REGENERATORS 

him  a  belated  passion.  Into  public  life  he  had 
never  ventured  till  shortly  before  the  earthquake, 
when,  with  his  father  Claus  Spreckels  he  entered 
into  a  dispute  with  the  United  Railroads  and 
threatened  to  build  a  rival  street  railroad  system. 
Rudolph  Spreckels  is  a  man  of  a  haughty, 
domineering  spirit,  very  much  of  the  same  tem- 
perament as  his  father  who  went  through  life 
breeding  animosities  and  hostilities.  For  nearly 
fifteen  years  that  father  was  at  war  with  three 
of  his  children — an  only  daughter  and  two  sons, 
Rudolph  and  Augustus  Spreckels.  To  each  of 
these  sons  he  gave  a  fortune,  yet  the  two  joinecf 
in  a  most  bitter  contest  in  the  courts  against 
their  aged  parent.  Him  they  pursued  with 
preternatural  vindictiveness.  No  father  ever 
experienced  greater  pain  than  did  Claus  Spreck- 
els from  the  bite  that  is  even  sharper  than  a 
serpent's  tooth.  Painful  as  it  is  to  dwell  on  this 
phase  of  the  career  of  Rudolph  Spreckels,  it 
must  be  glanced  at  that  we  may  understand  the 
force  and  nature  of  the  character  that  dominated 
afi^airs  in  San  Francisco  for  nearly  three  years. 
To  what  extremes  a  man  of  the  temperament  of 
Rudolph  Spreckels  might  go  as  the  ruling  spirit 
of  an  oligarchy,  can  be  judged  from  his  ruthless 
and  relentless  pursuit  of  his  own  father,  but  it 
would  be  as  unpleasant  as  it  is  unnecessary  to 
go  minutely  into  the  shocking  details  of  that 
contest. 

Associated  with  Mr.  Spreckels  in  the  railroad 


MEN    AND    MOTIVES  39 

enterprise  was  Mr.  James^JD^'Jielan,  and  this 
gentleman  was  associated  with  him  also  in  the 
Graft  Prosecution.  Indeed  it  is  believed  that 
Mr.  Phelan  prompted  the  whole  scheme  of  re- 
form. Mr.  Phelan  like  Mr.  Spreckels  is  also  a 
millionaire  by  inheritance,  but  unlike  Mr.  Spreck- 
els he  has  been  active  in  politics  since  the  days  of 
his  youth.  The  goal  of  his  ambition  is  the 
United  States  Senate,  but  as  he  is  a  Democrat, 
and  as  Republicans  usually  predominate  in  the 
California  legislature,  his  constituents  have  never 
been  able  to  do  more  than  reward  his  devotion 
to  party  principles  with  a  complimentary  vote. 
As  mayor  of  San  Francisco  he  made  an  ejjcellent 
record,  and  grew  strong  in  public  favor  till  am- 
bition o'erleaped  itself.  By  revolutionizing  the 
government  with  a  new  charter  he  was  able  to 
centralize  power  in  himself  and  create  a  political 
machine  for  the  furtherance  of  his  ambition. 
Then  followed  a  revulsion  of  public  sentiment 
caused  by  the  suspicion  that  the  artful  mayor 
was  applying  his  power  to  his  own  ends.  The 
result  was  the  swinging  back  of  the  pendulum 
and  the  election  of  the  fiddler  sponsored  by 
Abraham  Ruef.  That  was  nearly  ten  years  ago. 
And  Mr.  Phelan  has  been  vainly  endeavoring  to 
rehabilitate  himself  ever  since.  His  most  recent 
effort  was  in  the  guise  of  an  anti-Japanese 
agitator  and  bosom  friend  of  the  downtrodden 
wage  earner.  Though  known  in  San  Francisco 
as  the  enemy  of  every  dollar  that  isn't  his  own, 


40  THE    REGENERATORS 

Mr.  Phelan  has  some  agreeable  qvialities,  such  as 
a  flippant  wit,  a  command  of  the  tricks  of  lan- 
guage for  oratorical  purposes,  and  a  taste  in  art — 
not  much,  but  just  enough  to  play  the  dilettante. 
A  pleasant  acquaintance  to  meet  between  the  acts 
of  a  comedy  is  Mr.  Phelan,  though  as  unemo- 
tional as  a  fish. 

To  these  men,  whose  portraits  have  been  faintly 
outlined,  was  given  control  of  the  machinery  of 
justice  that  they  might  purify  a  corrupt  municipal 
government  and  punish  the  criminals  by  whom  it 
had  been  debauched.  And  as  we  shall  see  it  was 
not  long  before  they  were  concentrating  all  their 
energies,  all  their  resources,  on  one  paramount 
achievement — the  conviction  of  Patrick  Calhoun, 
President  of  the  United  Railroads.  Was  it  be- 
cause they  regarded  him  as  the  worst  of  all  the 
higher-ups?  This  is  a  question  about  which  we 
shall  he  able  to  speculate  on  a  pretty  broad  base 
of  knowledge  before  the  end  of  our  story.  The 
critics  of  the  Graft  Prosecution  often  intimated 
that  nothing  short  of  unadulterated  vindictiveness 
could  inspire  such  brutual  treatment  as  Patrick 
Calhoun  received  at  the  hands  of  the  regenerators. 
On  an  average  of  five  days  in  every  week, 
for  more  than  four  years,  he  was  held  up  to 
execration  in  the  columns  of  the  Bulletin  and 
the  Call.  Events  in  his  private  life  from  day 
to  day  were  made  the  theme  of  lampoons  and 
tirades  calculated  to  incite  against  him  the  most 
bitter  hatred  of  the  labor  unions  as  well  as  the 
furious    indignation    of   civic    reformers. 


MEN    AND    -MOTIVES  41 

Now,  as  it  has  been  charg-ed  that  the  prosecution 
of  Calhoun  was  inspired  with  vindictiveness  rather 
that  virtuous  resentment,  it  may  be  well  to  glance 
at  certain  records  and  consider  certain  matters 
which  critics  hostile  to  the  regenerators  have  re- 
lied upon  as  the  basis  of  their  theory.  From  the 
records  of  the  court  it  appears  that  in  the  year 
1905,  the  year  preceding-  that  of  the  earthquake 
and  fire,  when  the  main  lines  of  the  L^nited  Rail- 
roads were  operated  by  cable,  it  was  ])roposed  to 
convert  the  one  in  Sutter  street  into  an  overhead 
trolley  road.  Many  of  the  property  owners  on 
that  street,  instigated  by  Rudolph  Spreckels  and 
his  father,  Claus  Spreckels,  protested.  They  de- 
manded that  the  conduit  system  be  adopted.  A 
long  controversy  followed  between  the  property 
owners  and  the  officials  of  the  corporation,  and  at 
its  close  Rudolph  Spreckels  announced  that  there 
could  be  no  settlement  and  that  "it  would  be  war 
to  the  knife."  Meanwhile,  however,  it  became 
known  that  he  and  his  father  and  James  D. 
Phelan  had  determined  upon  building  an  opposi- 
tion street  railroad  system  covering  the  whole 
■  city.  Rudolph  Spreckels  was  quoted  in  one 
newspaper  in  these  words :  "It  will  be  built  re- 
gardless of  any  action  that  can  be  taken  by  the 
United  Railroads."  His  company  was  incorpo- 
rated the  day  preceding  that  of  the  earthquake 
and  fire.  It  has  never  been  heard  of  since.  But 
it  might  have  been  heard  of  after  the  fire  had 
not  the  United  Railroads  obtained  permission  to 


42  THE    REGENERATORS 

substitute  the  trolley  for  the  cable  system.  As 
Spreckels  intended  to  introduce  the  conduit  sys- 
tem and  use  the  rails  of  the  United  Railroads 
over  a  certain  number  of  blocks  in  each  street, 
as  provided  for  by  law,  this  project  would  hardly 
have  been  feasible  with  the  trolley  system  in 
operation. 

Of  course  the  circumstance  that  Rudolph 
Spreckels  and  his  father  were  out-manoeuvred 
by  Patrick  Callioun  in  a  business  matter  is  not  to 
be  taken  as  conclusive  that  vindictiveness  was 
the  only  motive  with  which  the  prosecution  of 
the  railroad  president  was  inspired.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  not  to  be  gainsaid  that  vindictive- 
ness is  the  most  distinctive  trait  of  the  Spreckels' 
character.  Spreckels  pere,  who  loomed  a  swart 
figure  behind  his  son  in  the  original  controversy 
with  Calhoun,  and,  until  his  death,  behind  the 
Graft  Prosecution,  was  one  of  the  most  vindictive 
of  men.  His  reputation  for  vindictiveness  was 
widespread.  A  man  of  prodigious  arrogance,  he 
was  intolerant  of  the  slightest  opposition.  No- 
body ever  incurred  his  disfavor  without  suffer- 
ing some  kind  of  punishment.  Once  upon  a  time 
he  built  a  competing  gaslight  system  in  San 
Francisco  to  revenge  himself  on  the  president  of 
the  gas  company  who  had  failed  to  act  on  his 
demand  that  a  nuisance  be  abated.  The  com- 
peting system,  which  was  to  give  the  people 
cheaper  gas,  he  sold  out  to  the  old  company 
at  a  good  profit,  just  as  he  sold  out  to  the  sugar 


MEN    AND    MOTIVES  43 

trust  after  promising  to  oppose  it  forever  in  the 
interest  of  the  dear  people. 

Still  keeping  in  mind  the  point  under  discus- 
sion— the  question  of  motive — we  come  to  the 
two  memorable  street  car  strikes  that  brought 
distress  and  suffering  to  San  Francisco.  Those 
strikes  occurred  when  San  Francisco  was  going 
through  the  early  stages  of  the  process  of  rehabil- 
itation. So  widespread  were  the  effects  that  this 
industrial  strife  was  hardly  less  than  a  supple- 
mentary catastrophe.  And  those  strikes  were  an 
incident  of  the  Graft  Prosecution ;  so  important 
an  incident  as  to  deserve  treatment  in  a  separate 
chapter. 


Ill 


THE    CAR    STRIKES 

Because  Union  Men  Demand  and  Are  Denied  Lower 
Wages  a  City  is  Made  to  Suffer  from  Lawless- 
ness and  Business  Paralysis 

Nothing-  so  raised  the  hopes  and  encouraged 
the  people  of  San  Francisco  after  the  earthquake 
and  fire  as  the  reconstruction  of  the  street  car 
system.  The  United  Railroads  Company,  which 
owns  nearly  the  whole  traction  system  of  the 
city,  started  its  cars  while  the  ruins  were  still 
smoking.  An  electric  car  was  the  symbol  of 
hope  and  confidence.  It  signified  the  faith  of  a 
great  corporation  in  the  future  of  a  city  housed 
in  shacks  which  had  hardly  begun  to  think  of 
righting  itself.  A  few  months  later,  in  violation 
of  an  agreement  with  the  railroad  company, 
conductors  and  gripmen  quit  work  and  all  San 
Francisco  walked.  There  was  a  temporary  ad- 
justment of  differences,  there  was  arbitration, 
but  what  followed  in  the  course  of  time  ap- 
proximated civil  war.  The  spirit  of  the  shat- 
tered community  was  almost  broken. 

A  unique  industrial  conflict  was  this  which 
the  stricken  city  experienced.  It  was  unique  be- 
cause it  was  not  the  result  of  friction  between 
an   employer   and   his   employees.     As   we   shall 


'I'lll':    CAR    STRIKES  45 

see,  there  had  hecn  no  clamor  on  the  part  of 
the  employees  of  the  I'nited  Railroads  for  a 
better  apportioning  of  wages  to  work.  What, 
then,  was  the  cause  of  the  strikes?  This  is  a 
question  the  reader  must  solve  after  acquainting 
himself  with  the  facts. 

Long  after  the  strikes  had  passed  into  his- 
tory they  became  an  issue  in  the  graft  cases, 
the  regenerators  having  made  the  accusation 
against  Patrick  Calhoun  that  he  precipitated  the 
strikes  to  win  public  sympathy.  This  they  did 
when  they  learned  that  Calhoun  had  procured  a 
mass  of  affidavits  for  the  purpose  of  showing  that 
the  strikes  were  instigated  by  his  enemies  to  em- 
bitter public  sentiment  and  to  serve  their  political 
ends.  There  was  no  question  at  all  as  to  the 
fact  that  the  strikers  were  the  instruments  of 
some  person  or  persons  moved  by  sinister 
motives. 

Now  to  facilitate  study  of  the  motives  and  the 
political  purposes  that  were  uppermost  in  the 
minds  of  some  men  in  those  days  we  must  go 
back  to  the  morning  of  the  great  catastrophe 
when  all  San  Francisco  was  in  panic.  On  that 
dark  morning  Mayor  Schmitz,  the  man  who  is 
today  an  outcast,  was  an  inspiring  and  inspirit- 
ing figure.  A  great  crisis  called  forth  his  in- 
nate qualities,  and  they  were  those  which  com- 
manded the  admiration  of  everybody.  Accept 
all  the  evil  told  of  him  and  reject  the  good,  and 
Eugene    Schmitz   will   appear   a   repulsive   char- 


46  THE    REGENERATORS 

acter,  but  not  so  if  we  consider  only  the  man 
and  his  work  during  the  terrible  crisis  of  1906. 
How  great  the  contrast  between  the  gov- 
ernor of  the  State,  George  Pardee,  pious  re- 
former, and  the  mayor  of  the  city,  Eugene 
Schmitz,  practical  unholy  politician,  the  one  so 
timid  and  vacillating  as  to  be  appropriately  nick- 
named "Weak  Brother" ;  the  other  exhibiting  a 
gift  for  organization  and  command  that  heart- 
ened a  people  appalled  by  disaster  and  bowed 
beneath  a  great  weight  of  woe.  The  times  were 
exceptional,  pregnant  with  momentous  events, 
and  the  man  was  on  a  par  with  the  times.  The 
midst  of  a  disjointed  world  seemed  his  appro- 
priate field  of  action. 

On  Schmitz  devolved  the  task  of  bringing  or- 
der out  of  chaos.  And  he  was  preoccupied  with 
it  before  the  conflagration  had  swept  beyond  the 
block  where  it  started.  This  labor  union  mayor 
called  round  him  before  noon  of  the  day  of  the 
catastrophe  fifty  of  the  most  prominent  men  in 
the  city.  No  longer  did  he  depend  for  guidance 
on  Abraham  Ruef.  The  man  of  genius  knows 
instinctively  where  to  look  for  suitable  talent. 
In  this  emergency  Eugene  Schmitz  took  counsel 
of  Mr.  Garret  McEnerney,  the  leader  of  the 
California  bar,  a  man  of  exceptional  attainments, 
of  brilliant  intellect,  a  commanding  character, 
the  kind  of  man  in  whom,  whatever  he  under- 
takes, one  may  place  unlimited  trust.  Un- 
der   McEnerney's    mentorship    Mayor    Schmitz 


THE    CAR    STRIKES  47 

organized  a  committee  wliich  absorbed  all  the 
powers  of  government.  It  became  a  committee 
of  public  safety.  Mayor  Schmitz  was  chairman. 
As  such  he  ceased  to  be  the  rei^resentative  of 
a  class.  Indeed,  in  forming"  his  committee  he 
gave  but  scant  recognition  to  the  unions,  select- 
ing his  men,  as  was  right,  with  a  view  to  sur- 
rounding himself  with  expert  ability.  But  in 
the  dawn  of  rehabilitation  there  was  no  jealousy 
or  distrust  or  envy.  There  is  nothing  like  a 
great  sorrow  to  unite  men  in  loving  brotherhood. 
Calamity  was  the  furnace  that  melted  many  evil  > 
passions  and  fused  hearts  long  estranged.  It 
was  in  the  spirit  of  the  times  that  Mayor  Schmitz 
acted.  He  gave  but  one  harsh  order — that  all 
looters  should  be  instantly  shot.  It  was  a 
necessary  order.  For  the  chairman  of  the  relief 
fund  committee  he  selected  James  D.  Phelan,  his 
most  vindictive  political  enemy,  the  man  whom 
he  succeeded  in  public  office  and  whom  he  knew 
to  be  always  on  the  alert  for  opportunities  of 
improving  his  prestige  and  manipulating  the 
political  machinery  of  the  city  and  State.  This 
position  brought  Phelan  in  close  touch  with  the 
great  horde  of  refugees,  and  enabled  him  to  pur- 
sue his  favorite  pastime  of  improving  his  prestige 
as  a  public  spirited  citizen.  Rudolph  Spreckels 
was  made  a  member  of  the  committee,  and  the 
two  millionaires  had  no  difficulty  in  dominating 
it.  Together  they  managed  the  business  of  dis- 
tributing the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars 


48  THE    REGENERATORS 

that  flowed  into  the  city   in  the   form  of  reHef 
donations. 

It  was  not  then  known  that  these  men  had 
planned  the  prosecution  that  was  started  some 
months  later,  but,  as  was  afterward  learned,  that 
enterprise  had  been  under  discussion,  and  while 
the  Committee  of  Fifty  was  still  working  in  har- 
mony Phelan  and  Spreckels  had  their  spies  em- 
ployed in  stalking  Schmitz  and  Ruef  through  the 
city's  debris.  But  of  course  they  are  not  to  be 
criticised  for  that.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the 
Graft  Prosecution  was  anything  but  premature. 
In  justice  to  Schmitz,  however,  it  must  be  said 
that  so  far  as  the  records  go  there  is  nothing  to 
show  that  he  was  guilty  of  any  misconduct  after 
the  earthquake.  And  so  that  the  political  bear- 
ing of  the  situation  may  be  understood  it  must 
be  explained  that  a  temporary  rehabilitation  of 
Schmitz  occurred  in  this  very  period.  Aware 
of  the  fact,  he  remarked  one  day,  "My  public 
career  will  date  from  the  earthquake."  and  the 
newspapers  quoted  and  approved.  Schmitz  was 
spoken  of  as  a  likely  candidate  for  governor  at 
the  fall  elections.  Some  men  might  have  been 
eager  to  pull  him  down  at  this  time.  Soon 
it  began  to  appear  that  he  had  lost  friends. 
.As  he  had  kept  all  the  saloons  closed  for  more 
than  two  months,  and  as  he  had  maintained 
law  and  order  with  military  and  puritanical 
exactness,  murmurs  of  dissatisfaction  presently 
emanated     from     his     former     stronghold,     the 


THE    CAR    STRIKES  49 

tenderloin.  Moreover,  labor  leaders  were  heard 
to  complain  about  the  personnel  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Fifty.  They  remarked  that  Schmitz 
had  allied  himself  with  the  business  interests. 
Presently  the  IktUetin  began  suggestionizing  the 
employees  of  the  United  Railroads. 

In  the  Bulletin  of  the  10th  of  August,  1906,  is 
to  be  found  the  first  suggestion  to  the  carmen. 
It  is  in  the  form  of  an  editorial  entitled :  "Why 
the  workingman  wins  with  the  odds  against  him." 

Strikes  are  what  is  won  by  the  workingman,  ac- 
cording to  the  Bulletin.  They  win  because  "cap- 
ital makes  cowards  of  us  all,"  because  "the  rich 
man  has  much  to  lose."  Then  follows  a  list  of  the 
rich  man's  luxuries.  In  conclusion  this  naively 
incendiary  writer  tells  us  that  the  workingman 
is  sentimental  rather  than  mercenary  in  his  devo- 
tion to  his  union  and  "will  not  quit  wdien  his 
employer  offers  him  wages  above  the  union  scale." 
Nothing  about  a  street  car  .strike  in  this  editorial. 
But  five  days  later,  on  August  15,  appeared  an 
editorial  headed,  "Demands  of  the  carmen  for 
a  three  dollar  wage."  From  the  first  paragraph 
it  appeared  that  no  demands  had  been  Jnade.  It 
had  been  merely  reported  that  the  carmen  in- 
tended making  demands.  The  Bulletin  hoped  that 
if  they  did  so.  "Patrick  Calboun  would  see  his  way 
clear  to  granting  their  petition."  Then  followed 
a  long  argument  in  favor  of  the  breaking  of  the 
agreement  between  the  company  and  its  em- 
ployees.    The  argument  was  based  on  the  prop- 


so  THE    REGENERATORS 

osition  that  the  cost  of  Hving  had  increased  since 
the  earthquake.  Nothing  was  said  of  the  in- 
creased expenses  of  the  company  or  of  the  great 
cost  of  reconstruction.  The  following  day  the 
Bulletin  published  a  news  item  headed,  "Car- 
men will  ask  for  an  advance."  Thk  is  the  open- 
ing sentence :  "The  United  Railroads'  employees 
enthusiastically  received  the  suggestion  of  the 
Bulletin  that  they  should  be  paid  a  higher  rate 
of  wages."  So  here  we  have  a  frank  confes- 
sion that  it  was  on  the  Bulletin's  suggestion 
that  the  demands  were  made.  On  August  17 
appeared  an  editorial  expounding  the  "Wages 
of  street  carmen  in  the  light  of  high  rents."  On 
August  19  the  Bulletin  announced  that  the 
carmen  would  that  day  demand  $3  a  day  and 
eight  hours.  On  the  twenty-first  the  Bulletin 
editorially  approved  the  demand.  At  this  time 
Patrick  Calhoun  was  not  in  the  State.  The 
union  officials  were  told  that  he  would  arrive 
August  26.  The  strike  movement  was  hurried 
forward,  and  though  the  demand  for  more  wages 
and  shorter  hours  was  not  made  till  August  20 
the  men  quit  work  on  the  night  of  the  twenty- 
fifth.  Why  was  there  this  great  haste?  An  ex- 
planation comes  from  J.  H.  Bowling,  secretary 
and  treasurer  of  the  carmen's  union,  whose  verac- 
ity is  not  here  vouched  for.  In  a  sworn  state- 
ment made  for  Patrick  Calhoun  he  said  that 
P^remont  Older,  editor  of  the  Bulletin,  had  urged 
the  members  of  the  executive  committee  to  strike 


THE    CAR    STRIKES  51 

before  Calhoun's  arrival,  saying  that  if  Calhoun 
arrived  they  might  not  be  able  to  strike.  From 
Bowling  it  was  also  learned  that  when  the  Bul- 
letin was  fomenting  discontent  large  bundles  of 
that  journal  were  sent  to  the  car  barns  each  day 
and  distributed  free. 

From  Bowling  we  learn  of  another  incident 
of  some  significance  with  reference  to  the  state 
of  afifairs  immediately  preceding  the  strike.  From 
this  incident  it  appears  that  the  leaders  of  the 
strike  movement  were  well  aware  that  the  car- 
men were  not  eager  for  the  conflict ;  also  that 
they  were  fearful  that  Mayor  Schmitz  might 
avert  a  conflict  and  thus  increase  his  popularity. 
They  remembered  that  about  a  year  before  this 
time,  when  a  strike  was  threatened,  Mayor 
Schmitz  appeared  at  a  meeting  of  the  union  just 
before  a  decisive  vote  was  taken  and  by  an  im- 
passioned speech  to  the  men  prevailed  on  them 
in  the  interest  of  the  city  to  remain  at  work. 
According  to  Bowling  it  was  feared  the  mayor 
would  repeat  this  performance  at  the  meeting 
held  in  August,  1906,  to  decide  whether  a  strike 
should  be  called.  Bowling  swears  that  Edward 
Livernash  was  in  a  cab  outside  the  hall  ready 
to  answer  Schmitz  in  the  event  of  his  counseling 
peace.  Livernash  is  an  eloquent  labor  agitator, 
a  lawyer  and  journalist,  a  man  of  the  type  of 
the  "Friend  of  the  People"  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution. He  was  for  a  long  time  connected  with 
the  Bulletin  in  the  capacity  of  editorial  writer. 


52  TIIK    RFXiRNERATORS 

and  he  wrote  many  editorials  fomenting  in- 
dustrial strife.  He  was  attorney  for  the  car- 
men's union  and  the  intimate  associate  of  Rich- 
ard Cornelius,  president  of  the  union.  This 
Cornelius  was  an  agitator,  a  shrewd  politician 
and  a  member  of  the  civil  service  commission. 
Appointed  to  that  commission  by  Mayor  Schmitz, 
he  was  retained  by  Mayor  Taylor  when  the  Graft 
Prosecution  was  in  control  of  the  municipal  gov- 
ernment, and  of  the  Graft  Prosecution  he  was  a 
vociferous  partisan. 

As  we  have  seen,  all  the  employees  of  the 
United  Railroads  quit  work  on  the  night  of  the 
25th  of  August.  On  August  27  the  Bulletin 
printed  an  editorial  beneath  this  headline 
in  large  type:  "Patrick  Calhoun,  Start  Your 
Cars  at  Once  !"  In  this  editorial  the  question 
was  asked :  "What  right  has  an  Eastern  capital- 
ist to  come  to  this  city,  where  he  does  business 
and  where  he  does  not  live  and  where  he  receives 
three-and-a-half  times  the  interest  he  is  entitled 
to.  which  he  carries  off  to  the  Atlantic  seaboard 
for  investment,  and  add  to  the  fiery  trials  which 
have  came  upon  it  with  such  fury  in  the  recent 
past?" 

This  Eastern  capitalist  suffered  a  greater  loss 
from  the  fire  than  any  Californian  capitalist,  a 
circumstance  which,  considered  in  connection 
with  the  part  that  he  played  in  the  work  of 
rehabilitation,  might  reasonably  be  urged  in  ex- 
tenuation of  his  offense  of  carting  dividends 
away  from  San  Francisco. 


TIIR    CAR    STRIKES  S3 

The  strike  called,  Calhoun  refused  to  rec- 
ognize or  deal  with  men  no  longer  employed  by 
him,  men  who  had  violated  not  only  their  contract 
but  the  by-laws  and  constitution  of  the  union  un- 
der which  they  were  organized.  In  eight  days  he 
had  employed  twelve  hundred  men  in  the  East 
and  transported  them  by  special  trains  to  San 
Francisco.  These  men  arrived  at  night,  and  in 
spite  of  the  vigilance  of  thousands  of  pickets, 
were  housed  in  the  fortified  and  provisioned 
car-barns  of  the  railroad  company  before  the 
news  of  their  arrival  reached  the  public.  This 
quick  action  of  Calhoun's  had  not  been  calculated 
upon  by  his  enemies.  The  governor  of  the 
State,  who  was  afterwards  an  active  partisan  of 
the  Graft  Prosecution,  espoused  the  cause  of  the 
strikers.  In  a  telegram  to  Calhoun  he  protested 
against  the  importation  of  labor  from  other 
States.  Calhoun  was  not  awed  by  this  mes- 
sage. He  reminded  the  governor  that  it  was 
I'ls  duty  to  enforce  the  law  and  give  protection 
to  men  who  wanted  to  work. 

The  United  Railroads  was  ready  early  in 
September  to  resume  business  with  a  new  force 
of  men.  But  the  plans  of  the  men  who  in- 
stigated the  strike  having  been  disarranged  they 
were  for  calling  a  halt.  Public  sympathy  was 
with  the  railroad  company,  and  the  probability 
was  ihat  the  strikers  would  suffer  defeat.  Liver- 
nash,  acting  as  attorney  for  the  union,  proposed 
and   was   refu'-ed   a  compromise   talk   with   Cal- 


54  THE   TiEGENERATORS 

houn.  Then  the  men  were  advised  to  accept 
Calhoun's  terms — return  to  work  and  arbitrate 
their  grievances. 

Thst  tlie  United  Railroads  agreed  to  arbitra- 
tion in  good  faith,  and  that  the  men  who  were 
counseling  the  union  agreed  only  for  a  mean 
strategic  purpose,  is  clearly  shown  by  subsequent 
events. 

By  the  terms  of  the  arbitration  agreement  it 
was  limited  to  the  unexpired  period  of  the  con- 
tract between  the  carmen  and  the  corporation. 
The  arbitration  committee  presided  over  by  Chief 
Justice  Beatty  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
State  rendered  its  decision  March  1,  1907.  By 
this  award  the  wages  of  motormen  and  con- 
ductors were  advanced  about  twenty-five  per 
cent;  that  is,  they  were  awarded  $3.10,  $3.20  and 
$3.30  for  ten  hours,  the  scale  being  according 
to  the  length  of  time  each  man  had  been  in  the 
service  of  the  company.  That  this  was  a  satis- 
factory wage  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  when 
a  new  proposal  was  made  by  the  carmen,  just  be- 
fore the  expiration  of  the  time  covered  by  the 
arbitration  agreement,  it  was  for  an  eight-hour 
day  and  a  three  dollar  wage.  But  while  the 
union  was  willing  to  accept  lower  wages,  by  the 
reduction  of  time  which  they  demanded  the  ex- 
penses of  the  company  would  be  greatly  in- 
creased. That  the  rank-and-file  of  the  union 
really  wanted  lower  wages  may  well  be  doubted. 
Indeed  it  is  more  reasonable  to  presume  that  the 
proposal  was  designed  only  to  cause  trouble. 


THE    CAR    STRIKES  55 

Meanwhile  Patrick  Calhoun,  the  man  whom 
the  regenerators  accused  of  having  provoked  the 
second  strike,  which  occurred  on  May  1,  had 
gone  to  Europe.  During  his  absence  Richard 
Cornelius,  the  president  of  the  union,  was  pav- 
ing the  way  for  new  differences.  Whether  or 
not  Cornelius  was  merely  the  tool  of  men  who 
wished  to  harass  the  railroad  officials,  the  fact 
is  he  preferred  strife  to  peace.  Also  it  is  a 
fact  that  almost  as  soon  as  the  arbitration  com- 
mittee rendered  its  decision  Cornelius,  or  the 
men  by  whom  he  was  inspired,  planned  a  strike 
for  the  month  of  May.  Of  course  this  fact  they 
did  not  make  public.  It  leaked  out  much  to 
their  astonishment,  and  they  quickly  denied  that 
a  strike  was  contemplated.  It  was  Cornelius 
himself  who  divulged  the  information,  but  this 
his  associates  never  knew.  The  history  of  the 
whole  intrigue  is  told  here  for  the  first  time. 
The  man  who  caused  the  truth  to  be  made  public 
was  Edward  F.  Moran,  president  of  the  civil 
service  commission.  Cornelius  told  him  there 
would  be  a  strike  in  May.  "The  boys  will  be 
out  on  May  1,"  he  said;  "I'm  going  to  Detroit 
to  fix  the  matter  up  with  the  executive  board 
so  that  nothing  will  interfere  with  our  plan." 
Moran  advised  Cornelius  to  inform  Mayor 
Schmitz,  and  he  arranged  a  meeting  between 
Schmitz  and  Cornelius  at  which  the  mayor  was 
told  what  soon  would  happen.  Then  Cornelius 
left  for  Detroit,  ostensibly  to  attend  a  meeting 


56  THE    REGENERATORS 

of  the  Amalgamated  Association  of  Street  Rail- 
way Employees. 

At  this  time  Mr.  Harry  Creswell,  one  of  the 
attorneys  of  the  United  Railroads,  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  police  commission.  When  the  strike 
of  August,  1906.  occurred  Creswell  sent  his 
resignation  to  the  mayor,  but  as  the  strike  was 
soon  over  the  resignation  was  not  accepted. 
Early  in  March,  1907,  Mayor  Schmitz  wrote  to 
Cresw^ell,  saying  he  would  accept  his  resignation 
because  a  strike  was  to  be  called  in  May.  The 
following  is  an  excerpt  from  the  letter  which 
was  published  in  the  Call  of  March  15,  1907:  "T 
received  information  a  few  days  ago  that  on 
May  1  another  strike  would  take  place.  Of 
course  I  intend  to  try  to  avert  it  if  possible.  If 
a  strike  does  take  place — and  from  all  accounts 
it  seems  almost  unavoidable — your  position 
naturally  would  be  inconsistent  as  a  member  of 
the  police  commission."  The  Call  accused 
Schmitz  of  "betraying  the  secret  plans  of  the 
carmen."  In  other  papers  officers  of  the  car- 
men's union  denied  that  there  was  to  be  a  strike. 
Cornelius  heard  of  Schmitz's  letter  while  in  the 
city  of  Spokane  en  route  to  the  East,  and  from 
Spokane  he  wrote  a  letter  to  W.  C.  Leffingwell, 
vice-president  of  the  union.  The  letter,  bearing 
date  of  ^Nlarch  17,  1907,  contains  the  following- 
paragraph  : 

"I  see  by  the  papers  that  Mayor  Schmitz  says 
there    will    be    a    strike    unless    he    prevents    it. 


^   /£e.^ 


4yfi^     O-^u^     AAJ^X^    -^      ^^«>*-  /^."' 
^       fU-^^^^       I.^r--t/^    //^"^    ^ 


••^3* 


/ 


.^illi  rtm  I       ,y 


fr.\(;mi-:xts   oi-   nil-:   cokxki.u-s   lettkks 


/^ 


THK    CAR    STRIKES  57 

Well  the  only  way  he  can  prevent  it  will  be  for 
him  or  somebody  else  to  get  Patrick  Calhoun 
to  come  through  with  the  goods.  It  looks  like 
politics  to  be  talking  like  that  at  this  time.  What 
do  you  think?" 

From  another  paragraph  in  this  letter  it  ap- 
pears that  at  the  time  it  was  written  Cornelius 
had  not  as  yet  read  the  decision  of  the  arbitra- 
tion committee. 

On  April  1  Cornelius  wrote  another  letter  to 
Leffingwell.  This  time  from  Detroit.  It  con- 
tained this  paragraph : 

"That  statement  of  yours  in  the  paper  was  all 
right.  I  don't  see  what  made  Mayor  Schmitz 
make  such  a  crack  as  he  did  in  the  papers.  But 
it's  all  right  anyhow,  for  the  people  might  just 
as  well  know  what  is  coming,  for  come  it  will. 
And  I  have  great  faith  that  we  shall  have  the 
executive  board  with  us  this  time,  for  T  shall 
use  every  effort  to  make  them  understand  the 
situation  in   San   Francisco." 

From  all  that  Cornelius  wrote  to  Lefifingwell 
it  is  clear  that  when  he  left  San  Francisco,  about 
March  6,  1907,  it  was  with  the  intention  of  ob- 
taining the  assent  of  the  national  body,  which 
his  union  represented,  to  call  a  strike  on  the  1st 
of  May.  Calhoun,  who  had  not  been  in  San 
Francisco  since  October,  1906,  arrived  in  New 
York  from  Europe  on  the  17th  of  March,  1907. 
It  was  reported  in  the  press  that  as  soon  as  he 
learned  that   his   company   was   threatened   with 


58  THE    REGENERATORS 

another  strike  he  sought  an  interview  with  W. 
D.  ^Nlahon,  president  of  the  national  association. 
Calhoun  went  to  Detroit  to  see  Mahon,  but  the 
latter  was  then  sick  in  bed,  and  advised  Calhoun 
t'3  go  before  the  executive  committee,  which  he 
did.  there  confronting"  Richard  Cornelius.  Cal- 
houn begged  the  committee  to  prevent  a  strike. 
He  said  that  his  reputation  and  his  property  were 
both  at  stake  as  a  result  of  a  political  plot  in- 
spired by  his  enemies.  He  told  of  the  strike  in 
the  summer  of  the  previous  year,  which,  he  said, 
had  been  unjustly  called  to  harass  him,  and  de- 
clared that  a  new  plot  had  been  hatched.  He 
pointed  out  that  always  he  had  been  on  friendly 
terms  with  union  labor  and  had  procured  recogni- 
tion for  the  unions  in  other  cities.  He  professed 
a  Willingness  to  continue  the  arbitration  wage 
for  another  year,  and  offered  to  enter  into  an- 
other contract  on  the  spot.  He  concluded  his 
talk  with  the  statement  that  if  a  strike  were 
called  he  would  never  again  recognize  the  unions. 
>  At  this  time  the  Graft  Prosecution  was  plung- 
ing ahead  under  full  steam,  and  the  San  Fran- 
cisco papers  were  full  of  rumors  of  the  probable 
indictment  of  the  traction  president. 

Having  explained  matters  to  the  executive 
committee  Calhoun  left  Detroit  for  San  Fran- 
cisco, soon  to  be  followed  by  Cornelius.  And 
then  came  the  demand  of  the  union  for  an  eight- 
hour  day  and  a  three-dollar  wage,  which  would 
mean  a!  twenty-five  per  cent  increase  in  the  cost 


THE    CAR    STRIKES  59 

of  labor  to  a  corporation  which  was  then  facing 
bankruptcy. 

The  day  before  the  strike  was  called  Calhoun 
and  all  his  subordinate  officials  were  sumnioncil 
before  the  grand  jury,  and  for  days  thereafter 
they  were  kept  dancing  attendance  on  that  body. 
Thus  the  strike  and  the  prosecution  began  to 
move  side  by  side. 

The  strike  was  the  bloodiest  and  costliest  in 
the  whole  history  of  industrial  strife  in  this 
country.  More  than  one  thousand  men  were 
thrown  out  of  employment,  and  for  seven  months 
San  Francisco  was  in  a  state  bordering  on  civil 
war.  The  whole  city  felt  the  shock  of  contest, 
for  the  fortunes  and  happiness  of  the  whole  com- 
munity were  involved.  Business  was  paralyzed, 
many  small  firms  were  forced  into  bankruptcy. 
As  all  wage-earners  belonging  to  unions  were 
obliged  to  contribute  to  the  support  of  the  strik- 
ers, every  unit  of  organized  labor  had  a  deep 
personal  interest  in  the  quarrel.  Sympathy  with 
the  strikers  consequently  was  widespread.  The 
disorder  that  marked  the  progress  of  the  strike 
made  of  San  Francisco  one  vast  Golgotha.  In 
all  its  hideousness,  its  bloody  and  cruel  details 
this  strike  was  the  essence  of  inhumanity.  For 
a  time  few  people  had  the  courage  to  ride  on  the 
cars.  In  almost  every  block,  wherever  buildings 
were  rising  from  the  ruins,  from  ambuscades  be- 
ing continually  improvised,  cars  were  bombarded 
with  bricks,  steel  rivets  or  whatever  was  deadly 


60  THE    REGENERATORS 

and  ready  to  hand.  Acts  of  violence  were  for 
a  time  of  daily  occurrence,  men  were  maimed 
and  lives  were  lost.  The  press,  which  is  nowhere 
as  in  San  Francisco  the  palladium  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  oro-anized  labor,  was  more  industrious 
in  suppressing  than  in  disseminating  the  news. 
Never  did  the  newspapers  impute  lawlessness  to 
the  strikers,  but  without  cessation  the  pro-graft 
organs  assailed  the  indicted  railroad  officials  with 
epithet  and  invective. 

Rioting  and  bloodshed  occurred  the  very  first 
day  that  the  United  Railroads  resumed  business. 
Two  policemen  in  plain  clothes  who  attempted 
to  board  a  beleaguered  car  in  the  midst  of  the 
riot  were  shot  down  by  the  non-union  carmen, 
who  supposed  them  to  be  strikers  leading  the  as- 
sault. This  of  course  was  a  most  unfortunate 
occurrence,  and  bitterly  were  the  carmen  de- 
nounced for  their  fatal  error.  In  the  press  of  the 
next  day  the  chief  of  police  declared  his  intention 
to  arm  a  police  squad  of  one  hundred  with  rifles 
and  instruct  them  to  shoot  down  strike-breakers. 
That  day  he  met  Patrick  Calhoun  in  the  mayor's 
office,  and  when  questioned  by  the  railroad  presi- 
dent, affirmed  emphatically  that  he  meant  what 
he  had  said.  "Then,"  said  Calhoun,  "I'll  arm 
all  my  men  with  Winchesters."  The  chief 
speedily  changed  his  mind.  Thereupon  Calhoun 
said  that  he  would  send  his  men  out  unarmed, 
and  see  whether  he  could  inspire  respect  by  an 
exhibition  of  courage.     What  he  promised  was  a 


THE    CAR    STRIKES  61 

hazardous  thing-  to  do,  but  tlic  dcsi)ised  strike- 
breakers did  it.  And  the  performance  was  in 
vain.  A  brave  lot  of  men  were  those  non- 
unionists.  Several  hundred  of  them  were  ad- 
venturous mountaineers  from  Kentucky,  Ten- 
nessee and  Texas,  rough  and  ready  soldiers  of 
fortune  who  seemed  to  be  wholly  devoid  of 
fear.  Valiant,  hardy,  and  so  well  endowed 
with  the  qualities  which  compel  respect  as 
to  make  one  reg^ret  that  they  should  be 
subjected  to  the  indignities  that  were  heaped 
upon  them  during-  that  protracted  and  ugly 
struggle.  A  cruel  and  cowardly  war  was  waged 
against  them.  While  from  ambuscades  they  were 
attacked  by  day,  at  night  as  they  stood  in  the 
full  glare  of  electric  lights  assaults  were  made 
on  them  under  cover  and  in  the  security  of 
darkness. 

How  sanguinary  the  strike  was  may  be  judged 
from  the  fact  that  seven  hundred  and  one  men 
working  on  the  cars  were  so  seriously  injured 
as  to  require  hospital  treatment.  Besides  these 
there  were  scores  treated  for  flesh  wounds  at  the 
several  barns.  How  many  union  men  were  in- 
jured we  shall  never  know,  but  from  the  court 
records  it  appears  that  thirty-nine  were  killed. 

One  incident  of  the  strike  tells  the  story  of 
the  attitude  of  the  municipal  authorities.  I'^ive 
of  Calhoun's  employees,  who  were  trying  to 
escape  from  a  mob  one  day,  while  flying  to  a 
barn     for    refuge    were     shot    down    by    three 


62  THE    REGENERATORS 

policemen.  Two  of  these  policemen  had  been 
members  of  the  teamsters'  union  and  one 
had  been  a  member  of  the  carmen's  union.  All 
were  made  policemen  during  the  strike.  An- 
other circumstance  of  some  significance  was  the 
appointment  by  Mayor  Taylor  of  ^lichael  Casey 
to  the  chairmanship  of  the  board  of  public  works, 
which  had  supervision  of  the  streets  over  which 
the  cars  were  operated.  Casey  was  president 
of  the  teamsters'  union,  and  he  was  also  a  mem- 
ber of  the  strike  committee  appointed  by  the 
labor  council.  Cornelius  was  also  a  member  of 
that  committee,  and  he  remained  on  the  civil 
service  commission  all  the  time  that  the  Graft 
Prosecution   ruled  the  city. 

It  was  largely  due  to  this  great  strike  and  the 
passions  which  it  roused  that  the  Graft  Prosecu- 
tion was  enabled  to  carry  the  municipal  election 
in  the  fall  of  1907.  Throughout  the  strike  the 
pro-prosecution  organs  were  censuring  Calhoun 
for  not  granting  the  union's  demand,  and  Ru- 
dolph Spreckels  in  an  interview  in  one  of  the 
daily  papers  accused  Calhoun  of  inciting  the 
strikers  to  violence  by  his  observations  from  time 
to  time,  which  observations  were  almost  in- 
variably" evoked  by  the  addresses  to  the  public 
made  by  the  officers  of  the  carmen's  union.   — ' 

Be  what  it  might  the  cause  or  inspiration  of 
this  bloody  strike,  which  ended  in  the  utter  de- 
struction of  the  carmen's  union,  there  can  be 
no  question  as  to  the  attitude  of  the  regenerators 


THE    CAR    STRIKES  63 

from  beginning  to  end.  And  certain  it  is  that  if 
none  of  them  was  instrumental  in  precipitating 
that  strike,  at  least  their  relations  and  connec- 
tions were  such  that  they  might  have  averted  it. 
Deliberately  to  instigate  whatsoever  is  bound  to 
destroy  life  and  property  is  a  most  heinous  crime, 
and  of  that  crime  perpetrated  in  San  Francisco 
in  the  year  1907  somebody  is  guilty.  Must  we 
regard  the  regenerators  on  account  of  their  high 
character  as  free  from  suspicion.  Some  very 
strange,  some  very  cruel,  some  very  fiendish 
things,  have  been  done  by  men  who  persuaded 
themselves  that  they  had  the  welfare  of  their 
country  at  heart,  and  who  made  that  the  scale 
for  the  weighing  of  their  motives. 

Long  after  the  strikers  abandoned  their  cause, 
when  the  question  as  to  who  instigated  the  strike 
provoked  crimination  and  recrimination,  affidavits 
and  depositions  of  some  of  the  former  union 
officials  were  procured.  That  was  when  Bowling 
made  his  affidavit.  W.  C.  Leffingwell  volun- 
teered to  have  his  deposition  taken.  He  related 
that  at  a  meeting  of  the  union,  during  the  strike, 
Cornelius  reported  that  he  had  been  down  to 
see  "the  big  fellows,"  and  that  there  was  no 
doubt  but  that  Calhoun  would  be  placed  where  he 
belonged.  "Cornelius  stated  on  many  occasions," 
said  Leffingwell,  "that  the  thing  to  do  was  to 
keep  the  strike  going  on  until  Calhoun's  trial  and 
then  he,  Calhoun,  would  be  on  the  bum."  The 
witness    related    also    that    one    day    during   the 


64  THE    REGENERATORS 

strike  the  men  were  paid  off  with  money  brought 
to  the  meeting  in  a  sack  by  Michael  Casey,  who 
said  that  it  had  been  borrowed  from  Livernash. 
Burns's  detectives  learned  of  the  making  of 
these  depositions,  and  Bowling  was  induced  to 
meet  Fremont  Older  and  give  him  a  copy  of 
the  statement  that  he  had  made.  The  statement 
was  published  in  the  Bulletin  before  Calhoun 
had  an  opportunity  to  make  it  public.  Thus  did 
Older  by  anticipation  render  innocuous  the  stories 
told  by  the  union  officials.  Older  accused  Bow- 
ling of  conspiring  with  Calhoun  to  besmirch  the 
character  of  the  graft  prosecutors,  and  had  him 
arrested  for  libel.  If  Older  had  prosecuted  Bow- 
ling, the  whole  truth  would  have  come  out.  This 
he  did  not  do.  Bowling  demanded  a  hearing.  He 
caused  Detective  Burns  to  be  summoned  as  a 
witness.  Burns  failed  to  respond,  but  was  ex- 
cused by  Police  Judge  Deasy,  a  protege  of  the 
(iraft  Prosecution,  who  dismissed  the  case  on 
motion  of  the  complainant.  The  explanation  of 
the  motion  was  that  the  regenerators  were  too 
busy  with  other  matters  to  find  time  for  the 
prosecution   of  Bowling. 


111-.    (AU    STRIKE 


Scenes    on    two    occasions    when    sympathetic    teamsters    blocked 
traffic    on    the    public    streets. 


IV 


BIZARRE    JUSTICE 

The  Manipulation  of    Juries,  Grand  and    Petty,  a 

Plague  of  Spies  and  the  Employment 

of  General  Warrants 

Of  the  many  evils  resulting'  from  the  Graft 
Prosecution  the  worst  was  the  utter  demoraliza- 
tion of  the  established  processes  of  law  and  the 
impairment  of  pvtblic  confidence  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  justice.  Pjecause  of  this  California  is 
today  threatened  with  a  constitutional  amend- 
ment designed  to  render  the  courts  sensitive  to 
popular  whim  and  subservient  to  the  dictates  of 
the  mob.  The  San  Francisco  regenerators  with 
the  assistance  of  the  newspapers  and  the  co- 
operation of  college  professors  and  such  distin- 
guished university  presidents  as  Benjamin  Ide 
Wheeler  and  David  Starr  Jordan,  inculcated  in 
the  public  mind  a  curious  notion  regarding 
the  duty  of  the  ministers  of  justice.  The  Graft 
Prosecution  acted  on  the  theory  that  the  courts 
ought  to  administer  whatever  they  might  con- 
ceive to  be  moral  justice.  This  theory  the  news- 
papers approved  and  Dr.  Wheeler  actually  voiced. 
The  doctrine  of  the  presumption  of  innocence 
was  pronounced  heterodox ;  and  Francis  J. 
Heney,  in  open  court,  denied  that  there  was  any 


66  THE    REGENERATORS 

authority  for  the  principle,  gravely  arguing  that 
when  a  man  was  indicted  he  was  presumed  to  be 
guilty.  The  prevailing  sentiment  was  that  the 
supervisors  having  confessed  they  were  bribed, 
nothing  could  be  clearer  than  that  the  men  who 
bribed  them  should  be  sent  to  the  penitentiary. 
The  fact  is,  as  we  shall  see,  that  what  the 
supervisors  confessed  was  quite  different  from 
what  they  were  said  to  have  confessed.  Also,  the 
fact  is,  as  we  shall  see,  that  while  there  is  no 
doubt  of  the  guilt  of  the  supervisors,  there  may  be 
much  doubt  of  the  guilt  of  many  of  the  higher- 
ups.  But  for  the  present  let  us  confine  ourselves 
to  consideration  of  the  irregularities  of  the  prose- 
cution. 

The  regenerators  stoutly  affirmed  the  absurd- 
ity of  presuming  anybody  to  be  innocent.  Though 
they  (lid  not  express  the  sentiment  they  implied 
by  their  actions  and  loose  talk  that  the  higher-ups 
should  be  got  to  jail  by  hook  or  by  crook.  In- 
deed there  were  men  in  San  Francisco  who 
realy  considered  it  but  a  matter  of  form,  the 
invoking  of  the  function  of  the  courts.  As  every- 
body knew  the  higher-ups  were  guilty,  it  was 
suggested,  why  not  take  a  plebiscite  on  the  ques- 
tion of  punishment?  This  sentiment  holds  the 
germ  of  the  principle  on  which  it  is  proposed  to 
apply  the  recall  to  the  judiciary,  an  expedient 
objectionable  on  the  ground,  if  on  none  other,  of 
its  cumbersomeness,  since  the  referendum  might 
be  more  rationally  employed  to  the  same  purpose 


BIZARRE    JUSTICE  67 

in  all  kinds  of  litigation,  thus  obviating  the  neces- 
sity of  a  judiciary. 

And  so  as  it  was  determined  to  have  chiefly 
moral  justice  administered  for  the  benign  pur- 
poses of  the  regenerators,  Francis  J.  Heney  gave 
his  personal  attention  to  the  work  of  impaneling 
a  grand  jury.  In  deference  to  popular  sentiment 
he  was  permitted  to  catechise  each  citizen  on  the 
jury  panel  and  exclude  every  one  that  did  not 
favorably  impress  him.  Thus  he  managed  to  or- 
ganize a  very  docile  jury,  one  that  produced  in- 
dictments for  him  with  something  of  the  auto- 
matic readiness  of  a  nickel-in-the-slot  machine. 
His  influence  over  the  jury  had  all  the  potency 
of  irresistible  hypnotism.  But,  to  be  sure,  the 
grand  jury  was  in  a  most  receptive  and  suscepti- 
ble mood.  How  could  it  be  otherwise,  with  pro- 
pitious public  sentiment  clamorous  for  indict- 
ments, and  the  newspapers  shrieking  for  indict- 
ments and  assuring  the  people  that  as  the  jurors 
had  the  public  interest  at  heart  they  could  be  de- 
pended upon  to  perform  their  duties  in  accordance 
with  Mr.  Heney's  wishes?  Such  subtle  flattery 
might  reasonably  have  been  expected  to  have  the 
desired  effect.  The  grand  jurors,  most  of  whom 
were  stolid  business  men,  unaccustomed  to  the 
limelight,  having  no  previous  experience  of  the 
joys  of  celebrity,  awoke  to  the  blare  of  fame,  and 
realized  that  they  were  entitled  to  rank  as  civic 
patriots.  With  great  enthusiasm  some  of  these 
susceptible  citizens  became  part  of  the  civic  re- 


68  THE    REGENERATORS 

vleir.ption  machine.  A  few  of  them  were  re- 
warded with  pubHc  office,  not  by  the  people  but 
by  the  gentlemen  most  capable  of  appreciating" 
their  disinterested  service — the  regenerators.  One 
was  rewarded  even  unto  the  second  generation, 
his  son  being  appointed  police  magistrate,  thus 
becoming  available  for  service  to  the  cause. 

It  was  thus  the  good  work  went  on,  and  it 
was  in  circumstances  such  as  these  that  days  of 
terror  dawned  for  men  marked  for  slaughter ; 
that  prominent  citizens,  seized  with  panic  fright, 
went  scurrying  about  town  invoking  the  influence 
of  their  friends  to  save  them  from  indictment 
for  they  knew  not  what.  Nothing  more  some 
of  them  knew  than  that  detectives  were  at  their 
heels,  and  that  at  some  time  in  their  lives  they  had 
incurred  the  emnity  of  some  one  of  the  prose- 
cutors. William  J.  Burns,  the  Sejanus  of  the 
Graft  Prosecution,  had  an  army  of  spies  at  his 
beck  and  call.  And  all  the  while  Francis  J. 
Heney  was  issuing  through  the  columns  of  an 
exultant  press  vague  but  portentous  manifestoes 
susceptible  of  as  varied  interpretation  as  the 
dictum  of  a  Greek  oracle.  By  day  he  worked  at 
the  grand  jury  mill,  grinding  out  indictments. 
By  night  he  addressed  public  meetings,  vituperat- 
ing the  men  whom  he  was  engaged  in  prosecut- 
ing. Always  he  went  about  with  the  forbidding 
aspect  of  a  Foucjuier-Tinville,  starting  gooseflesh 
with  his  frown.  Parlous  were  the  times  while 
Heney 's   magnetic   power   over   the   grand   jury 


BIZARRE    JUSTICE  69 

was  at  its  height.  In  time  that  power  diminished,  v^ 
the  consequence  being-  that  all  of  the  prosecutor's 
early  promises  were  not  realized ;  that  is  he  did 
not  indict  all  the  men  to  whom  he  had  opened 
up  the  melancholy  prospect  of  a  long  sojourn  in 
the  penitentiary.  Not  that  he  relented,  or  that 
time  assuaged  his  passion,  but  that  some^f  the 
grand  jurors  revolted  against  the  practice  of  in- 
dicting men  without  evidence.  Thus,  Mr.  Heney 
failed  to  procure  the  indictment  of  William  H. 
Crocker.  He  urged  the  indictment  of  that  gen- 
tleman, but  got  only  one  vote,  a  circumstance 
which  seems  to  argue  that  Mr.  Crocker  was 
not  only  guiltless  of  crime  but  almost  an  im- 
peccable citizen,  for  at  no  other  time  were  so 
many  of  the  pliant  jurors  unresponsive  to  the 
wishes  of  the  prosecutor.  The  failure  to  indict 
Crocker  must  have  occasioned  profound  lamenta- 
tions, for  he  was  a  marked  man  from  the  be- 
ginning. Besides  he  was  one  of  the  pet  aver- 
sions of  James  D.  Phelan. 

Further  disappointment  of  a  grievous  nature 
was  caused  by  Mr.  Heney 's  inability  to  procure 
the  indictment  of  William  F.  Herrin,  chief  of  the 
law  department  of  the  Southern  Pacific  Company. 
It  was  supposed  that  the  indictment  of  Herrin 
would  lead  to  the  indictment  of  Harriman,  but 
no  evidence  was  available ;  not  a  scintilla  of  evi- 
dence against  the  officers  of  the  great  corpora- 
tion which  is  reputed  to  have  been  in  the  busi- 
ness of  corrupting  the  government  of  California 


70  THE    REGENERATORS 

for  almost  half  a  century.  This  lack  of  evidence, 
however,  was  not  necessarily  a  bar  to  prosecution, 
or  at  least  to  indictment,  as  is  evident  from  the 
experience  of  more  than  one  man.  The  case  of 
W.  I.  Brobeck,  reported  in  volume  152,  page  289 
of  the  California  Reports,  will  suffice  for  illustra- 
tion. "The  indictment  referred  to  in  this  opin- 
ion," says  the  court,  "was  subsequently  dismissed 
by  the  Superior  Court  of  the  City  and  County  of 
San  Francisco  upon  motion  of  the  district  at- 
torney on  the  ground  that  there  is  no  evidence 
sufficient  to  put  said  W.  I.  Brobeck  on  his  defense 
to  said  charge  and  that  in  the  interest  and  fur- 
therance of  justice  the  said  indictment  as  to  said 
\V.  I.  Brobeck  should  be  dismissed  and  dis- 
charged." The  district  attorney  who  moved  the 
dismissal  on  these  grounds  was  the  district  at- 
torney of  the  Graft  Prosecution. 

With  reference  to  Herrin,  Harriman  and 
Crocker  it  may  be  truly  said  that  the  cunning 
spider  had  too  long  delayed  the  weaving  of 
his  web  for  the  biggest  flies  of  his  seeking. 
However,  Mr.  Heney  did  very  well  in  the 
days  before  the  grand  jurors  became  intract- 
able. Men  were  indicted  at  his  behest  who  have 
never  been  -brought  to  trial,  the  reason  being 
that  they  were  beyond  even  the  suspicion  of 
guilt.  Two  notable  cases  are  those  of  Thorn- 
well  Mullally.  vice-president  of  the  United  Rail- 
roads and  William  Abbott  of  that  corporation's 
law  department.     About  two  years  after  the  date 


BIZARRE    JUSTICE  71 

of  their  indictment  it  was  admitted  in  open  court, 
by  one  of  Mr.  Heney's  assistants,  during  the 
course  of  the  argument  in  one  of  the  graft  cases, 
that  there  was  no  evidence  against  Mullally  or 
Abbott,  and  that  they  never  would  be  tried.  Yet 
for  five  years  these  men  were  kept  under  bonds. 
Naturally  the  question  will  be  asked,  Why  were 
they  indicted?  The  answer  is.  In  the  hope  of 
extorting  testimony  from  them.  It  was  thus 
the  principle  that  the  end  justifies  the  means  was 
applied  in  San  Francisco. 

Prosecutor  Heney's  manipulation  of  the  grand  y 
jury  was  a  masterly  achievement.  But  quite 
comparable  with  it  as  a  triumph  of  ingenuity  was 
his  manipulation  of  trial  juries.  Here  again  the 
prosecutor  introduced  some  new  and  subtle 
stratagems ;  new  to  San  Francisco,  but  not  new 
to  Mr.  Heney,  for  he  had  tested  them  in  Oregon 
in  the  land  fraud  cases,  where  President  Roose- 
velt supplied  him  with  resources  almost  equal  to 
those  which  he  enjoyed  in  California.  With  the 
aid  of  his  large  corps  of  detectives  Mr.  Heney 
familiarized  himself  beforehand  with  the  char- 
acter, the  disposition  and  the  sentiments  of  every 
man  who  entered  the  jury-box  to  be  examined 
as  to  his  qualifications  to  serve  as  a  juror.  Pros- 
pective jurors  were  interviewed  for  the  enlighten- 
ment of  the  prosecution  without  being  conscious 
of  the  fact.  And  thus  it  became  an  easy  matter 
for  the  prosecution  to  determine  when  to  accept, 
when  to  exclude  and  when  to  challensre.     Mat- 


72  THE    REGENERATORS 

ters  were  greatly  facilitated  by  this  method, 
about  which,  by  the  way,  there  is  nothing 
inherently  wrong.  A  fair  and  disinterested 
prosecutor,  concerned  about  nothing  but  the  ad- 
ministration of  justice,  conscious  at  all  times  of 
his  obligations  as  a  juridical  officer,  (his  obliga- 
tions to  a  defendant  as  well  as  to  the  State) 
might  properly  be  indulged  in  the  practice  of 
this  method.  But  consider  Heney !  Consider 
that  this  most  zealous  of  prosecutors,  represent- 
ing a  private  cabal,  went  about  boasting  that  he 
would  send  to  the  penitentiary  every  person  in- 
dicted by  his  docile  grand  jury.  Not  privately, 
but  in  public,  on  the  bema,  he  pledged  himself 
to  convict  men,  who,  under  the  law  are  presumed 
to  be  innocent,  who  are  entitled  to  the  presump- 
tion of  innocence  even  as  late  as  when  the  jury 
retires  to  deliberate  on  the  verdict.  Consider 
that  while  this  prosecution  was  in  progress  it  was 
marked  by  an  ebullition  of  all  the  meaner  pas- 
sions of  human  nature,  and  that  in  the  heat  and 
dust  of  conflict  the  opposing  factions  fought 
tooth  and  nail,  might  and  main,  wfth  intense 
fury  and  brutal  obstinacy.  The  spirit  of  that 
contest  was  manifestly  not  akin  to  the  spirit  of 
the  square  deal.  Imbued  with  the  prevailing 
spirit  Prosecutor  Heney  availed  himself  of 
many  advantages  which  the  most  generous 
ethics  can  hardly  sanction.  The  fact  is  that  he 
did  not  decline  the  service  of  jurors  whom 
he    knew    to    be    so    prejudiced    as    to    be    be- 


BIZARRE    JU-STICE  73 

yonci  the  influence  of  evidence  or  the  per- 
suasion of  a  defendant's  counsel.  Proof  of 
this  is  accessihle.  The  proof  came  to  hght  in 
tlie  midst  of  a  very  exciting"  and  dramatic  situa- 
tion tliat  arose  out  of  the  rivalry  engendered  be- 
tween opposing  forces  of  private  detectives. 
For  be  it  known  the  defendants  did  not  allow  the 
detectives  for  the  prosecution  the  exclusive  priv- 
ilege of  interviewing  jurors.  Following  the  ex- 
ample of  their  pursuers  they  employed  a  large 
corps  of  detectives.  And  then  was  developed  a 
plague  of  detectives,  much  to  the  distress  of 
citizens  who  had  the  misfortune  to  be  eligible 
for  jury  duty.  More  than  fifty  per  cent  of  the 
citizens  of  San  Francisco  had  their  private  lives 
scrutinized  by  spies  during  the  progress  of  the 
Graft  Prosecution.  Hardly  to  be  compensated 
were  some  of  them,  even  though  the  good  Mr. 
Phelan  and  the  good  Mr.  Spreckels  had  really 
accomplished  the  regeneration  and  purification  of 
the  community.  These  spies  that  infested  San 
Francisco  were  typical  of  their  class.  Partisans 
for  hire,  they  were  to  be  alienated  for  hire.  On 
each  side  were  unfaithful  spies,  and  thus  the 
secrets  of  both  sides  became  more  or  less  common 
property.  Detective  Burns,  who  had  been  doing 
a  good  deal  of  boasting  about  his  success  in 
acquainting  himself  with  the  private  afl:'airs  of  the 
enemy,  learned  one  day  to  his  consternation  of 
treachery  in  his  own  camp.  Quickly  a  confer- 
ence of  the  prosecution  forces  was  held,  and  a 


74  THE    REGENERATORS 

grand  coup  was  resolved  upon,  the  boldest,  per- 
haps, of  all  the  high-handed  ventures  of  the 
regenerators.  They  resolved  to  get  access  under 
color  of  juridical  authority  to  all  the  private 
papers  of  the  United  Railroad  officials.  By  way 
of  pretext  Detective  Burns  swore  to  complaints 
charging  the  elusive  "John  Doe"  with  grand 
larceny,  and  on  these  complaints  he  asked  for 
general  warrants  by  virtue  of  which  search  might 
be  made  anywhere  and  everywhere.  Presum- 
ably, of  course,  he  believed  that  some  of  his 
papers  had  been  stolen.  Detective  Burns  has  a 
fine  facility  for  expedient  belief.  What  the 
enemy  had,  of  course,  were  copies  of  some  of 
the  reports  of  Burns's  detectives,  just  as  Burns 
had  copies  of  reports  made  by  the  opposition 
hawkshaws. 

General  warrants,  such  as  Detective  Burns 
asked  for,  are  believed  to  have  been  tabu 
on  American  soil  ever  since  that  memorable, 
eventful  period,  immediately  preceding  the  revolt 
against  the  rule  of  George  III.  They  are  not 
easily  obtainable  in  an  American  city.  But  San 
Francisco,  it  must  be  kept  in  mind,  was  ex- 
periencing a  curious,  mixed  character  of  govern- 
ment in  the  days  of  Rudolph  Spreckels's  ascend- 
ancy. Almost  anything  Spreckels  wanted  he 
could  have  for  the  asking.  What  power  his 
agents  were  vested  with  may  be  judged  from 
the  circumstance  that  Judge  Lawlor  issued  a 
large    number    of    blank    warrants,    signed    and 


BIZARRE    JUSTICE  75 

sealed,  lettrcs  de  cachet,  for  the  arrest  of  any 
private  citizen.  These  were  given  to  Detective 
Burns.  Why  then  should  Burns  have  had 
any  difficulty  in  obtaining  mere  search  war- 
rants? Wanting  them,  he  went  to  Magistrate 
Deasy,  son  of  one  of  Heney's  obedient  grand 
jurors,  formerly  a  deputy  in  District  At- 
torney's Langdon's  office,  and  the  warrants  were 
immediately  forthcoming.  Then  followed  a  raid 
on  the  offices  of  the  United  Railroads  Company. 
This  stratagem  was  planned  for  a  late  hour  in 
the  afternoon,  when  the  courts  were  adjourned, 
that  no  writ  of  injunction  might  be  obtained. 
But  the  officers  of  the  company  got  wind,  of  the 
project,  went  in  quest  of  a  judge,  found  one 
and  obtained  a  writ.  But,  of  little  use  in  those 
days  were  the  processes  of  the  court,  save  when 
they  were  invoked  for  the  purposes  of  the  re- 
generators. 

When  the  police  and  flock  of  private  detec- 
tives arrived  with  the  warrants  they  were  served 
with  the  writ  of  injunction,  and  they  ignored  it. 
Finding  the  vaults  of  the  company  locked,  they 
demanded  that  they  be  opened,  and  threatened 
that  otherwise  the  vaults  would  be  blown  open. 
So  the  vaults  were  opened,  and  all  the  books  and 
private  papers  found  there  were  examined  by 
the  detectives.  In  the  midst  of  the  search  a 
paper  was  found  the  sight  of  which  impelled  one 
of  Burns's  detectives  to  utter  an  exclamation  of 
astonishment.     It  also  induced  him  to  blurt  out 


1(i  THE    REGENERATORS 

a  bit  of  information  most  disqnieting"  to  his  em- 
ployers. In  the  presence  of  several  newspaper 
reporters  and  lawyers  this  detective,  Ray  C. 
Schindler,  exclaimed :  "Why  that's  a  copy  of 
my  own  report  on  Arthur.  No  wonder  you  chal- 
lenged him!  He's  the  most  prejudiced  man 
against  Calhoun  I  ever  saw."  Now  the  man  to 
whom  this  detective  alluded  was  James  L.  Ar- 
thur, a  building-  contractor,  who  had  been  twice 
in  the  jury  box — once  in  the  Ruef  case  and  once 
in  the  Calhoun  case.  In  both  instances,  while  he 
was  under  examination  as  to  his  qualifications  to 
serve  as  a  juror,  the  prosecution  had  in  its  pos- 
session the  report  of  Detective  Schindler  contain- 
ing these  words:  "Arthur  is  the  most  prejudiced 
man  I  have  interviewed  as  yet,  and  if  he  were 
chosen  as  a  juror  would  hang  out  for  conviction 
till  doomsday."  Yet  Francis  J.  Heney  was  will- 
ing, nay  eager,  to  have  this  man  sworn  as  a 
juror.  Francis  J.  Heney,  as  the  record  shows, 
heard  him  asked  this  question:  "Have  you  any 
prejudice  against  the  defendant  of  any  kind." 
And  Francis  J.  Heney  heard  him  reply,  "None 
whatever."  And  Francis  J.  Heney  sat  silent.  He 
heard  Arthur  challenged  for  cause,  and  resisted 
the  challenge.  In  the  Ruef  case  when  the  challenge 
was  resisted  the  attorney  for  the  defendant  called 
Heney  to  the  witness  stand,  and  asked  him  if  he 
did  not  have  a  report  regarding  Arthur's  state 
of  mind.  He  declined  to  answer.  Fvery  ques- 
tion that  was  asked  him  he  declined  to  answer. 


BTZARR1-:    JUSTICE  17 

and  the  judge  on  the  bench,  WilHam  P.  Lawlor, 
upheld  him  and  forced  the  defendant  to  exercise 
one  of  his  peremptory  challenges.  In  the  Cal- 
houn case  it  was  again  necessary  for  the  defense 
to  exercise  a  peremptory  challenge  in  order  to  get 
rid  of  Arthur. 

This  specimen  of  unfairness  on  the  part  of  the 
graft  prosecution  in  the  impanelment  of  juries 
is  but  one  of  many.  But  all  the  others  are 
not  susceptible  of  such  clear  presentation.  Of 
this  Arthur  infamy,  the  record,  with  brevity  and 
compactness,  speaks  for  itself.  There  are  some 
things  that  the  record  discloses  only  vaguely ; 
others,  not  at  all.  For  example  it  does  not  ap- 
pear from  the  record  that  special  venires  were 
summoned  by  a  deputy  sheriff  of  the  court's  own 
choosing,  or  that  the  judge  on  the  bench  was  him- 
self a  partisan  of  the  (iraft  Prosecution.  The 
fact  is  that  all  the  graft  cases  were  assigned  to 
two  judges — William  P.  Lawlor  and  Frank  H. 
Dunne — who  were  the  club  cronies  of  the  regen- 
erators ;  who  espoused  their  cause  off  the  bench ; 
who  were  involved  in  their  intrigues,  sharing  in 
their  glory  when  their  star  was  in  the  ascendant, 
and  complaining  of  public  ingratitude  in  the  hour 
of  their  downfall.  It  is  not  exaggeration  to  say 
that  by  reason  of  the  attitude  of  these  judges  it 
was  a  very  difficult  matter  to  prevent  the  juries 
being  packed  against  the  defendants. 


V 

GRAFTERS    AND    PROSECUTORS 

When  Facts  Don't  Square  with  Theory  then  Comes 

Progressive   Testimony  under  the 

Immunity  Lash 

Most  of  the  irregularities  of  the  Graft 
Prosecution'  are  rightly  to  be  ascribed  to 
the  circumstance  that  facts  did  not  square 
with  presumptions.  Abraham  Ruef  did  not 
handle  his  business  as  the  regenerators  sup- 
posed. Nor  were  the  supervisors  precisely 
the  kind  of  grafters  they  were  believed  to  be. 
But  the  eagerness  of  the  regenerators  to  reach 
their  end  being  in  proportion  to  their  impatience 
of  every  stubborn  fact  that  belied  what  they  be- 
lieved and  what  they  wished  everybody  else  to 
believe,  they  stuck  to  the  course  which  they  had 
charted,  through  all  the  channels  of  sophistry, 
striving  to  command  success  after  they  had 
ceased  to  deserve  it.  It  was  thus  they  came  to 
flounder  in  a  sea  of  difficulties,  thus  they  made 
history  which  to  this  hour  is  much  misunder- 
stood, its  whole  import,  meaning  and  value  per- 
versely deciphered. 

First  we  find  the  regenerators  striving  to  vin- 
dicate the  immunity  bath  by  picturing  the  super- 
visors as  tragic  victims  of  temptation.     Now  the 


GRAFTERS    AND    PROSECUTORS  79 

supervisors  were  nothing  of  the  kind.  Their 
meanest  graft  they  practiced  without  even  the 
knowledge  of  Ruef,  who,  discussing  them  after 
his  arrest,  described  them  as  so  greedy  that  "they 
would  eat  the  paint  off  a  house."  According  to 
the  pro-prosecution  press  they  were  poor  ignorant 
men  whose  virtue  was  intact  till  it  was  assailed 
by  the  plutocrats  of  the  public  service  corpora- 
tions. The  other  side  of  the  ])icture  was  un- 
veiled as  soon  as  the  graft  cases  came  to  trial. 
Then  it  was  learned  that  the  supervisors,  before 
their  official  seats  were  warm,  were  grafting  with 
tradesmen  from  whom  they  purchased  supplies 
for  the  city. 

On  Ruef's  preliminary  examination  Supervisor 
James  Gallagher,  chief  witness  for  the  prosecu- 
tion, "go-between"  for  Ruef,  gave  testimony  with 
reference  to  a  speech  made  by  Supervisor  Box- 
ton  as  spokesman  for  his  confreres  at  a  luncheon 
given  by  some  prominent  business  men  who 
wanted  what  is  known  as  the  Parkside  franchise. 
He  quoted  Boxton  thus :  "Well  you  people  are  not 
in  this  business  for  your  health,  and  we  are  not  in 
business  for  our  health."  Gallagher  swore  also 
that  up  to  that  time  no  illegitimate  proposal  had 
ever  been  made  by  a  corporation. 

From  what  one  may  learn  from  the  voluminous 
transcripts  of  the  testimony  given  at  the  several 
trials,  it  may  be  seriously  questioned  whether 
Ruef  was  guilty  of  statutory  crimes  because  of 
his  dealings  with  corporation  officials  and  public 


80  THE    REGENERATORS 

servants.  The  men  who  hired  Ruef  as  an  at- 
torney with  the  expectation  of  obtaining  his 
poHtical  influence  may  not  be  regarded  as  civic 
ideaHsts,  but  it  was  possible  for  them  to  take 
advantage  of  Ruef's  influence  without  committing 
any  infraction  of  the  penal  code.  And  it  is  but 
just  to  say  that  in  some  instances  Ruef's  in- 
fluence was  unsoHcited ;  furthermore,  as  there  is 
testimony  to  show,  the  ignoring  of  Ruef  might 
have  been  productive  of  very  serious  conse- 
(|uences  to  persons  having  business  relations  with 
the  city.  As  to  some  of  the  defendants  the  worst 
to  be  said  against  them  is  that  they  obeyed  the 
command  of  the  buccaneers — they  walked  the 
plank. 

The  civic  condition  of  San  Francisco  at  this 
time,  familiar  as  it  was  to  the  citizens,  requires 
a  brief  exposition  for  the  understanding  of  the 
general  reader.  Every  department  of  the  munic- 
ipal government  was  under  the  absolute  domina- 
tion of  Abraham  Ruef.  Mayor  Schmitz,  a  man 
of  courteous  manner  and  pleasing  personality, 
had  publicly  announced  his  undying  debt  of 
gratitude  to  Ruef,  and  had  freely  intimated  that 
any  one  who  sought  recognition  or  favor  from 
his  administration  must  do  so  through  Ruef. 
Tlie  board  of  public  works,  the  police  commis- 
sion, the  fire  department,  and  every  other  board 
and  commission,  were  filled  with  men  owning  and 
professing  no  allegiance  to  anything  or  anybody 
but  Ruef.     The  members  of  the  board  of  super- 


GRAFTERS    AND    PROSECUTORS  81 

visors  were  but  a  brigand  band,  organized  for 
plunder  under  the  sub-leadership  of  Gallagher, 
himself  a  member  of  the  board  and  an  attorney 
at  law,  but  taking  orders  absolute  from  Ruef. 
Thus,  while  the  board  of  supervisors,  through 
their  various  committees,  might  do  a  little  loot- 
ing and  plundering  upon  their  own  account,  in 
a  petty  larcenist  sort  of  way,  in  their  regular 
campaigns  of  brigandage  they  took  orders  from 
Ruef,  and  never  dreamed  of  violating  them. 
The  civic  condition  of  San  Francisco,  then,  un- 
der the  Ruef-Schmitz  regime,  was  this :  no 
citizen  could  look  for  justice,  much  less  for 
privilege  or  favor,  except  through  Ruef.  Ruef 
did  not  pretend  to  limit  his  activities  to  pub- 
lic or  quasi-public  corporations.  No  "fee"  was 
too  small  to  be  fish  for  his  net.  If  a  prop- 
erty owner  desired  to  build,  with  his  plans 
and  specifications  carefully  prepared  in  con- 
formity to  all  the  existing  ordinances,  it  was 
necessary  for  him  to  obtain  a  permit  so  to  build 
from  the  board  of  public  works.  His  plans  and 
specifications  being  absolutely  regular,  the  grant- 
ing of  the  permit,  it  would  be  thought,  would 
follow  as  a  matter  of  course.  But  in  practice  it 
never  followed.  The  property  owner  danced  at- 
tendance upon  one  session  after  another  of  the 
I)oard  of  public  works,  only  to  find  that  what- 
ever other  business  was  reached  and  transacted 
by  the  board,  his  matter  never  came  up.  If 
after  long  delay  the  light  did  not  break  in  upon 


82  THE    REGENERATORS 

his  mind  it  would  be  illuminated  for  him.  Some 
one  would  say  to  him :  "Why  don't  you  employ 
Ruef?"  Acting-  upon  the  suggestion  he  would 
go  to  Ruef,  formally  engage  him  as  his  "attor- 
ney" to  present  his  application  to  the  board  of 
public  works,  pay  him  the  fee  demanded,  and  at 
the  next  meeting  of  the  board  the  building  per- 
mit would  be  granted.  This  condition  of  affairs 
existed — not  in  exceptional  cases — but  in  all  cases. 
The  ramifications  of  this  system  extended  through 
all  the  body  politic.  Men  who  yielded  to  this  subtle 
form  of  extortion  did  not  know,  did  not  care, 
whether  Ruef  shared  his  "fees"  with  his  munic- 
ipal boards  and  commissions  or  not.  They 
only  knew  that  if  they  did  not  employ  Ruef  they 
could  not  secure  their  simple  rights,  while  if  they 
did  employ  him  those  rights  were  promptly  ac- 
corded them.  It  may  be  that  they  should  have 
stood  firm.  It  may  be  that  they  should  stead- 
fastly have  refused  to  yield  to  this  form  of  ex- 
tortion. So,  too,  it  may  be  that  the  innocent 
traveler  should  refuse  to  yield  his  pocketbook  to 
the  highwayman  with  a  pistol  at  his  head.  But 
we  are  here  carried  to  the  border  of  an  ethical 
domain  which  it  is  not  my  present  purpose  to 
enter.  The  fact  is,  that  if  the  citizens  who  so 
yielded  and  paid  "fees"  to  Ruef  under  these  cir- 
cumstances were  guilty  of  any  li\o;al  ofifense. 
then  it  is  within  the  bounds  of  truth  to  say  that 
five  thousand  worthy  citizens  of  San  Francisco, 
men  and  women,  could  and  should  have  been 
indicted. 


GRAFTERS    AND    PROS  ICC  U'lOKS  S3 

The  Parkside  franchise  case  is  both  typical  and; 
notorious.  A  number  of  business  men  of  San 
Francisco  had  purchased  a  tract  of  land  within 
the  corporate  limits  of  the  city,  but  outlying, 
suburban,  and  unimproved.  It  was  a  part  of  the 
sand-dunes  of  the  city.  They  planned  to  grade, 
level,  and  generally  improve  it,  when,  with  street 
car  communication,  which  did  not  then  exist,  it 
was  thought  that  the  land  would  become  readily 
salable,  to  the  pecuniary  advantage  of  the  owners 
and  to  the  great  benefit  of  the  municipality.  As 
a  part  of  this  plan  of  development  street  car 
service  to  the  property  was  essential,  and  the 
owners  of  this  property  sought  a  franchise  for 
the  construction  of  such  a  street  car  line.  Bear 
in  mind,  they  were  not  in  the  street  railway  busi- 
ness, and  did  not  desire  or  purpose  to  engage  in 
that  business.  All  that  they  wished  was  that  the 
board  of  supervisors  should,  as  the  charter  re- 
quired, advertise  the  sale  of  such  a  franchise  at 
public  auction.  So  far  from  desiring  to  own  and 
operate  the  franchise  themselves,  they  made  pub- 
lic announcement  that  upon  the  sale  of  the 
franchise  to  any  person  or  corporation,  they 
would  pay  the  sum  of  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars  as  a  bonus  to  aid  in  the  construction  of 
the  road.  Mayor  Schmitz  had  announced  him- 
self as  favoring  the  franchise.  Everybody  fav- 
ored the  granting  of  the  franchise.  But  it  was 
the  old  story.  The  supervisors  would  not  refuse 
to   advertise    such    a    franchise    for    sale.     They 


84  THE    REGENERATORS 

simply  failed  to  act.  Finally,  notice  was  brought 
home  to  Mr.  G.  H.  Umbsen,  who  was  in  man- 
agerial control  of  the  Parkside  lands,  that  if  it 
was  desired  that  this  franchise  should  be  ad- 
vertised for  sale,  he  would  better  employ  Ruef. 
Acting  upon  this  suggestion  he  saw  Ruef  for  the 
purpose,  and  employed  him  as  attorney  to  pre- 
sent the  matter  to  the  board  of  supervisors. 
Ruef  declared  that  the  Parkside  people  would 
make  a  million  dollars  from  the  sale  of  the  lands, 
and  demanded  an  exorbitant  fee  for  taking  this 
"legal"  employment.  He  was  finally  paid  the 
sum  of  thirty  thousand  dollars  in  cash.  By  no 
word  of  testimony,  either  of  the  Parkside  peo- 
ple, who  told  their  story  freely  before  the  grand 
jury,  or  of  Ruef  himself,  is  there  the  slightest 
understanding,  or  intimation  of  an  understand- 
ing, that  any  of  this  money  was  to  be  used  for 
the  purpose  of  bribing  supervisors.  It  was  a 
part  of  the  condition  which  universally  existed, 
that  the  supervisors  and  other  boards  would  act 
at  Ruef's  suggestion,  and  only  at  his  suggestion. 
What  he  did  with  the  money — whether  he  was  to 
use  it  to  "feed  his  dogs,"  or  to  satiate  his  "paint 
eaters" — no  citizen  knew  or  cared.  But  upon 
this  showing,  and  upon  this  evidence,  Umbsen 
and  others  of  his  associates  were  indicted,  and  an 
effort  was  made  by  Mr.  Heney  to  indict  William 
H.  Crocker,  touching  whose  connection  with  the 
affair  there  existed  not  one  word  of  evidence, 
and  who,  in  fact,  had  no  knowledge  whatsoever 


GRAFTERS    AND    PROSECUTORS  85 

of  Ruef  s  employment  or  the  payment  of  money 
to  him.  These  indictments  against  Umbsen 
and  his  associates  were  in  due  time,  after  they 
had  served  their  purpose  of  besmirching  the  in- 
dicted business  men,  dismissed  on  motion  of  the 
prosecution  itself,  for  "lack  of  evidence." 

So  we  see  that  if  Ruef  had  accepted  money  for 
the  express  purpose  of  bribery,  and  committed 
bribery  in  the  usual  way,  smooth  would  have 
been  the  path  of  the  patriots  to  their  darling  con- 
summation. But  Ruef  was  circumspect  in  his 
roguery.  A  shrewd  lawyer,  he  was  sensible  of 
the  hazards  of  his  business.  His  relations  with 
the  higher-ups  were  ostensibly  those  of  attorney 
and  client.  It  was  important  to  him  that  he 
should  put  himself  in  the  power  neither  of  the 
men  from  whom  he  was  receiving  money,  nor 
of  the  men  to  whom  he  was  giving  it.  Out  of 
his  sense  of  caution  he  dealt  only  with  one  super- 
visor— James  Gallagher.  Always  he  acted  the 
part  of  a  lawyer,  receiving  money  as  a  fee  and 
giving  some  of  it  away  not  as  a  bribe  but  out  of 
his  generosity  inspired  by  a  sense  of  gratitude. 

Now  it  may  be  said  that  it  is  idle  to  consider 
a  rogue's  metaphysical  distinctions  contrived  for 
self-exculpation.  But  I  am  not  at  all  concerned 
about  the  exculpation  of  Ruef  or  any  of  the 
other  defendants  in  the  graft  cases.  I  am  trying 
to  do  nothing  but  illumine  the  conduct  of  their 
prosecutors,  the  men  who  abhorred  the  sins  of 
the  grafters,  and  this  cannot  be  done  unless  the 


86  TTIE    REGENERATORS 

shifts  and  stratagems  to  which  they  were  put  by 
the  exigencies  that  arose  be  made  clear.  If  we 
are  prepared  to  admit  that  in  all  the  circumstances 
of  the  matter  the  prosecutors  were  justified  in 
dealing  with  the  defendants  as  though  they  were 
vermin,  law  or  no  law,  and  that  a  beneficent 
purpose  precluded  the  possibility  of  wrongdoing, 
then  these  essays  must  be  accepted  as  nothing 
more  than  academic  exercises.  But  whatever  the 
viewpoint  the  fact  is  that  it  was  not  all  plain 
sailing  for  the  regenerators.  The  first  thing 
that  gave  them  pause  was  a  remark  made 
by  Ruef  before  the  grand  jury  when  he  was  vol- 
untarily reciting  the  sordid  story  of  his  political 
career.  Questioned  about  his  relations  with  the 
gas  company,  he  said :  "I  received  a  fee  for  at- 
torney's services  of  $1,000  a  month  for  two  or 
three  months  prior  to  that,  and  then  finding  it,  as 
I  explained,  necessary  to  request  or  suggest  an 
additional  fee  which  I  thought  would  be  covered 
by  the  payment  of  twenty  thousand  dollars,  I 
suggested  that  to  Mr.  Drum.  I  wish  to  say  also 
in  justice  to  him  that  I  never  told  him  it  was 
to  be  paid  to  these  men."  This  testimony  was  not 
satisfactory  to  the  special  prosecutor,  who  there- 
upon asked  another  question,  eliciting  more  than 
he  bargained  for.  Thus :  "That  isn't  the  way  of 
doing  that  kind  of  business,  is  it?"  Ruef  made 
reply :  "I  don't  know  what  the  way  of  doing  that 
kind  of  business  is  except  so  far  as  it  has  con- 
cerned  myself.     I   never   told   any   living   being 


GRAFTERS  AND  PROSECUTORS    87 

that  I  was  receiving-  or  accepting  money  on  any 
proposition  to  be  given  supervisors,  except  Mr. 
Gallagher." 

Here  was  testimony  that  tended  to  exculpate 
the  higher-ups  in  a  lump.  It  came  from  the 
lips  of  the  chief  witness  for  the  prosecution. 
His  sincerity  at  this  time  was  unquestioned.  He 
was  interested  in  nobody's  welfare  but  his  own. 
The  testimony  was  not  volunteered.  It  was 
elicited  by  the  special  prosecutor,  who  was  quick 
to  appreciate  the  importance  of  it  to  the  defense. 
Taken  down  by  an  official  stenographer,  it  be- 
came a  public  record.  The  law  provides  that 
testimony  taken  before  the  grand  jury  might,  at 
the  option  of  the  district  attorney,  be  taken  down 
by  a  stenographer  and  if  so  taken  down  a  tran- 
script must  be  given  on  demand  to  every  per- 
son indicted  as  a  result  of  such  testimony.  The 
very  just  purpose  of  the  law  is  to  apprise  a 
defendant  of  the  nature  of  the  evidence  he  will 
be  called  upon  to  combat.  Now,  it  is  a  matter 
of  some  significance  that  after  Ruef  had  given 
his  testimony  with  reference  to  his  customary 
way  of  doing  business  the  services  of  the  stenog- 
rapher were  dispensed  with.  No  record  was 
made  of  Ruef's  testimony  in  the  trolley  cases. 
This  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  for  the  light  it  may 
throw  on  a  question  to  be  discussed  in  a  chapter 
to  follow,  the  question  being  whether  Ruef  was 
expected  to  adapt  his  testimony  to  the  exigencies 
of  a  case. 


88  THE    REGENERATORS 

In  addition  to  Rnef's  attitude  of  aloofness  to- 
ward the  supervisors  there  is  another  circum- 
stance that  increased  the  difficulties  of  the  prose- 
cution. It  is  this, — the  supervisors  were  Ruef's 
servile  creatures,  indebted  to  him  for  their  elec- 
tion, possessed  of  a  lively  sense  of  political  favors 
to  come,  and  the}'  would  have  done  almost  any- 
thing at  his  bidding-  without  pay  and  without 
promise.  The  truth  appears  to  be  that  at  odd 
intervals  he  gave  them  money  much  in  the  same 
spirit  as  a  man  would  throw  a  bone  to  a  dog. 
This  is  not  a  matter  of  conjecture.  It  is  borne 
out  by  the  testimony  given  by  the  supervisors  at 
a  time  when  they  were  earning  their  immunity, 
not  for  the  purpose  of  assisting  the  defense  or 
injuring  the  prosecution.  Take  for  example  the 
testimony  of  Supervisor  Wilson.  At  the  trial 
of  Tirey  L.  Ford,  one  of  the  officials  of  the  United 
Railroads,  Wilson  said,  'T  voted  on  everything 
because  Ruef  asked  me,  and  I  would  have  voted 
for  anything  and  everything  irrespective  of 
money  simply  because  Ruef  asked  me  to." 

This  same  witness  at  the  trial  of  Louis  Glass 
of  the  Pacific  States  Telegraph  and  Telephone 
Company  was  asked,  "When  did  you  first  ac- 
cept money  for  your  vote?"  He  replied :  'T  never 
sold  my  vote.  I  accepted  money  but  I  would 
have  voted  for  these  matters  anyway."  On  this 
occasion  as  on  all  others  the  witness  was  testify- 
ing for  the  prosecution.  His  testimony  is  not 
singular.     It  is  corroborated  even  by  Gallagher 


GRAFTERS    AND    PROSECUTORS  89 

who  worked  harder  than  any  of  his  confreres  to 
earn  immunity.  On  Ruef's  second  trial  Gal- 
lagher gave  this  testimony :  "There  would  be 
very  few  matters  that  I  would  not  have  voted  for 
upon  the  mere  request  of  Ruef." 

The  first  serious  mistake  of  the  Graft  Prosecu- 
tion was  in  granting  immunity  in  the  manner  in 
which  it  was  granted.  The  consideration  which 
moved  the  grafters  to  confess  was  that  they 
should  not  l)e  prosecuted.  But  the  prosecutors 
reserved  the  right  to  determine  what  sort  of  con- 
fession the  grafters  should  make.  In  other 
words  to  earn  their  liberty  the  grafters  had  to 
give  the  right  kind  of  testimony.  This  of  course 
is  not  exactly  in  accordance  with  the  principle 
of  leniency  universally  recognized  by  courts  of 
justice.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  legally  within 
the  discretion  of  nobody  but  the  judge  on  ihe 
bench  to  determine  whether  an  accomplice  is 
deserving  of  mercy  by  reason  of  service  rendered 
to  the  State.  But  the  graft  prosecutors  admin- 
istered justice  in  their  own  way.  They  kept 
the  corrupt  supervisors  out  of  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  court  by  withholding  indictments.  But  the 
threat  of  indictment  hovered  continually  over 
the  heads  of  the  supervisors,  and  the  effect  was 
most  salutary  from  the  standpoint  of  the  men 
before  whose  power  they  cringed.  The  so-called 
contract  of  immunity,  then,  was  merely  a  promise 
of  immunity  ;  a  bribe  it  was  called  by  the  un- 
regenerate.     Not  a  generous  view  to  take  of  it, 


90  THE    REGENERATORS 

but  one  that  seems  to  be  justified  by  the  records. 
For  the  truth  is  that  to  earn  their  immunity  the 
supervisors  had  to  do  some  tall  swearing ;  and 
to  adapt  their  testimony  to  a  radical  change  in 
the  theory  of  the  prosecution  in  the  trolley  cases, 
they  were  obliged  to  improve  their  memory,  with 
the  flight  of  time :  no  trivial  achievement  in  it- 
self. So  if  we  analyze  the  testimony  of  the 
supervisors  we  shall  find  that  they  appear  to 
have  added  perjury  to  their  other  crimes.  That 
they  testified  in  fear  and  apprehension  is  evident 
enough  from  the  records.  Supervisor  Wilson 
failed  to  give  the  right  kind  of  testimony  at  the 
first  Ford  trial,  and  he  was  indicted,  not  for 
perjury  but  for  the  bribery  that  had  been  con- 
doned. Later  at  the  Calhoun  trial,  when  he 
amended  his  testimony  satisfactorily,  he  admitted 
under  cross-examination  that  he  entertained  the 
hope  that  the  indictments  would  be  dismissed. 
And  they  were  dismissed.  Supervisor  Cofifey, 
whose  testimony  fell  short  of  the  necessities  of 
the  prosecution,  had  the  same  experience  as  Wil- 
son. Supervisor  Nicholas  said  at  the  Calhoun 
trial  in  response  to  a  question  by  defendant's 
counsel,  "It  is  my  understanding  that  if  the 
prosecution  thinks  I  am  not  telling  the  truth  my 
immunity  will  be  withdrawn  and  I  will  be  prose- 
cuted." Other  supervisors  testified  in  the  same 
vein. 

Now  for  several  reasons  it  was  no  easy  matter 
for  the  supervisors  to  testify  according  to  con- 


GRAFTERS    AND    PROSECUTORS  91 

tract,  one  of  the  reasons  being-  as  we  have  seen 
that  the  presumptions  didn't  square  with  the 
facts ;  another  being  that  the  prosecution  changed 
its  theory  of  the  trolley  cases.  Originally  the 
railroad  officials  were  indicted  for  having  bribed 
the  supervisors.  The  indictments  charged  the 
payment  of  a  bribe  on  May  14,  1906,  at  which 
time  the  ordinance  granting  the  trolley  franchise 
was  pending.  Tirey  L.  Ford  was  tried  three 
times  under  these  indictments.  On  the  first 
trial  the  testimony  showed  that  no  money  was 
received  by  the  supervisors  until  two  months 
after  the  final  passage  of  the  ordinance.  So  the 
prosecution  was  obliged  to  make  a  change  of 
front.  As  the  mere  payment  of  money  subse- 
quent to  the  pendency  of  a  measure  does  not 
constitute  any  crime,  it  became  necessary  for  the 
prosecution  to  prove  the  ofifer  of  a  bribe  before 
the  final  passage  of  the  ordinance.  But  Tirey 
Ford  was  tried  three  times  under  the  defective 
indictments.  Once  the  jury  disagreed  and  twice 
the  defendant  was  found  not  guilty.  Then  came 
new  indictments  as  substitutes  for  the  original, 
charging  the  oifer  of  a  bribe  on  May  14.  Mean- 
while a  great  volume  of  testimony  had  been 
given,  and  it  abounded  in  contradictions  and 
conflicting  statements.  And  all  the  while  Judge 
Lawlor  was  kept  busy  squaring  the  law  with 
the  facts.  We  find  him  changing  his  instruc- 
tions three  times  with  respect  to  the  time  in 
which    the    jury    must    find    the    ofifer    to    have 


92  THE    REGENERATORS 

been  made.  In  overruling  demurrers  to  the 
original  indictments  he  said  it  was  plain  to 
be  seen  "that  the  pleader  had  intended  to 
charge  an  offer  with  respect  to  a  matter  then 
pending."  On  the  first  Ford  trial  he  in- 
structed the  jury  that  before  they  could  find 
the  defendant  guilty  they  must  find  that  the 
offer  was  made  to  the  particular  supervisor  in 
question  "on  the  matter  of  the  bill  then  pending." 
On  the  second  Ford  trial  the  supervisor  in  ques- 
tion, Supervisor  Wilson,  couldn't  remember  just 
when  Ruef's  agent,  Gallagher,  had  first  spoken 
to  him.  So  Judge  Lawlor  instructed  the  jury 
that  it  wasn't  necessary  to  show  that  the  matter 
was  actually  pending  at  the  time  the  oft'er  was 
made.  Then  came  Patrick  Calhoun's  trial  under 
one  of  the  amended  indictments,  and  Judge  Law- 
lor instructed  the  jury  that  it  was  immaterial 
whether  they  believed  that  an  offer  had  been 
made  prior  to  the  introduction  of  the  ordinance 
or  during  its  pendency. 

Now  let  us  examine  the  ])rogressive  testimony 
of  the  supervisors  so  far  as  it  relates  to  the 
question  of  the  "advance  offers"  of  a  bribe.  First 
comes  James  Gallagher,  the  "go-between"  and 
principal  witness  for  the  prosecution.  His  first 
story  was  told  on  March  16,  1907.  at  the  Glad- 
stone apartments  and  reduced  to  writing.  It  is 
known  as  the  Gladstone  statement.  Describing 
the  method  of  doing  business  he  said,  "The  plan 
simply  was  to  speak  to  some  menihcr  of  the  board 


GRAFTERS    AND    PROSECUTORS         93 

and  tell  him  to  send  the  rumor  among  the  boys 
that  there  was  likely  to  be  a  certain  amount  in 
this  thing",  and  then  when  the  matter  would  come 
up  it  would  be  passed."  Questioned  about  the 
trolley  matter  he  said  he  told  Supervisor  Wilson 
about  it,  Wilson  being-  second  in  command,  and 
he  added,  "I  think  it  was  Wilson  who  talked 
with  some  of  the  boys  about  it  and  told  me  he 
thought  they  would  be  satisfied  with  $4,000." 
Two  days  later  before  the  grand  jury  Gallagher 
made  his  official  confession,  and  on  that  occasion 
he  said :   "It   was  not   customary   for  me  to  go 

around  to  each  member Generally  I 

spoke  to  Wilson  about  it,  and  it  would  then  be- 
come known  to  the  other  members."  Questioned 
about  the  trolley  permit  he  said  he  spoke  to  one 
or  two  members  about  it.  "I  think,"  he  said, 
"Mr.  Wilson  was  one  of  them."  At  the  first 
Ford  trial  he  said,  "I  think  I  spoke  to  several 
of  the  members  about  it."  At  the  second  Ford 
trial  he  remembered  si)eaking  to  Sanderson, 
Phillips,  Coleman  and  Davis.  At  the  third  Ford 
trial  he  added  IJoxton  and  L\irey.  Four  months 
later,  at  Ruef's  second  trial,  he  made  this  admis- 
sion :  "I  did  not  say  to  them  that  there  was  any 
amount  in  it,  or  anything  of  that  sort.  I  just 
asked  them  as  to  the  proposition  as  to  whether 
they  would  be  favorable.  My  recollection  is  that 
they  all  said  "yes." 

Up  to  this  time  the  "offers"  which  became  the 
sole  basis  of  the  case  for  the  prosecution  were 


94  THE    REGENERATORS 

presented  as  subjects  of  loose,  casual  and  informal 
talks.  But  when  Calhoun  was  prosecuted  under 
the  new  indictments  the  conversations  became 
more  specific.  In  addition  to  the  supervisors 
thus  far  mentioned,  Gallagher  remembered 
conversations  with  Nicholas,  Coffey,  Harrigan 
and  Lonergan.  He  remembered  that  he  told 
them,  about  a  week  before  the  ordinance  was 
passed  to  print,  that  there  was  $4,000  in  it  for 
each  of  them.  He  even  recollected  where  each 
separate  conversation  had  taken  place. 

Similarly  progressive  was  the  testimony  of 
Supervisor  Nicholas.  Called  as  a  witness  in  the 
Glass  trial  July  23,  1907,  he  was  questioned 
about  the  trolley  franchise,  and  said  he  was  quite 
sure  that  Gallagher  never  told  him  there  was  to 
be  any  money  in  it.  His  best  recollection  was 
that  "it  was  a  kind  of  impression  noised  around 
in  the  board"  that  money  would  be  paid.  At  the 
Calhoun  trial  two  years  later  he  remembered  that 
Gallagher  told  him  "there  would  be  $4,000  in  the 
matter." 

Supervisor  Wilson,  the  second  in  command, 
the  man  who  obtained  the  sentiment  of  the 
supervisors  for  Gallagher,  testified  on  several  oc- 
casions that  all  his  confreres  were  in  favor  of 
the  trolley  permit  and  that  he  spoke  to  none  of 
them  of  money.  "I  saw  quite  a  number  of  them," 
he  said  at  the  first  Ford  trial,  "enough  to  know 
that  it  would  go  through,  but  /  did  not  speak 
about  money  to  them;  and  I  found  that  the  senti- 


GRAFTERS    AND    PROSECUTORS  95 

ment  was  the  same  as  to  the  trolley  matter  as 
it  was  to  almost  everything-,  that  is,  to  let  the 

people    get    in    and    get    at    business 

Hundreds  of  carmen  told  me  that  they  wanted  to 
get  the  cars  going  to  get  to  work,  that  they 
were  tired  of  loafing,  and  the  merchants  all 
wanted  it  and  the  people  wanted  it." 

At  the  second  Ruef  trial  Gallagher  testified, 
"I  am  satisfied  that  Ruef  could  have  got  a  ma- 
jority to  vote  for  the  trolley  ordinance  without 
any  money."  This  sentiment  he  repeated  at  the 
first  Ford  trial  in  these  words :  "I  think  the 
trolley  franchise  would  have  been  passed  with- 
out a  dollar  from  anybody."  On  several  occa- 
sions this  same  witness  swore  that  liis  confreres 
at  first  wanted  more  money  than  Ruef  was  will- 
ing to  allow.  At  the  second  Ruef  trial  he  said, 
"When  Ruef  first  spoke  to  me  about  the  trolley 
matter  I  said,  'Well  I  don't  know  whether  the 
boys  would  want  to  do  that  or  not.'  "  He  added : 
"I  took  steps  to  round  them  up,  and  reported 
back  to  Ruef,  and  I  remembered  that  there  were 
some  members  who  thought  they  should  receive 
a  large  sum,  that  they  thought  it  would  be  a 
pretty  difficult  thing  to  put  through." 

Now  from  the  testimony  of  Gallagher's  con- 
freres, who  were  as  eager  as  Gallagher  himself 
to  earn  immunity,  it  would  seem  that  he  was 
nearer  the  truth  when  he  said  that  a  majority 
would  have  voted  for  it  without  any  money. 
Let    us    consult    the    record.      Supervisor    Mc- 


96  THE    REGENERATORS 

Giishin  testified  at  the  Calhoun  trial  thus :  "I 
was  not  bribed  in  the  trolley  matter  because  I 
had  no  previous  understanding  on  any  matter 
and  never  voted  with  a  mercenary  motive." 
Supervisor  Phillips  gave  this  testimony:  "I  don't 
think  that  I  heard  there  was  $4,000  in  it  before 
the  vote,  and  I  don't  think  I  heard  any  rumor. 
I  told  Gallagher  I  would  vote  with  the  Admin- 
istration, and  I  always  did  vote  with  Gallagher." 
Next  came  Supervisor  Mamlock :  "I  regarded 
Gallagher  as  the  leader  and  followed  him.  If  he 
said  'No  franchise'  I  would  have  voted  against 
it,  and  if  he  said  'Franchise'  I  would  have  voted 
for  it.  I  favored  the  trolley  and  would  have 
voted  for  it  without  money."  Supervisors  Cole- 
man and  Davis  swore  they  would  have  voted  for 
it  without  money.  Supervisors  Furey,  Sander- 
son, Coffey  and  Walsh  swore  that  nobody  ever 
told  them  money  was  to  be  paid  for  the  franchise. 
Here  we  have  a  preponderance  of  testimony,  sup- 
plied by  the  prosecution  itself,  in  flat  contradic- 
tion of  the  amended  testimony  of  Supervisor  Gal- 
lagher and  in  corroboration  of  the  testimony 
given  by  Gallagher  when  it  was  not  deemed 
necessary  to  establish  proof  of  the  "advance 
offers."  Furthermore  this  is  testimony  that 
tends  to  prove  that  Ruef  rewarded  the  super- 
visors as  he  saw  fit  and  not  because  he  had  to. 
In  morals  the  distinction  is  without  difference, 
but  in  law  the  diiference  is  immeasurable. 

Is    there   any    reason    for    supposing   that    the 


GRAFTERS    AND    PROSECUTORS  97 

supervisors  who  contradicted  Gallagher  were 
actuated  by  the  desire  to  assist  the  defendant? 
We  shall  see  that  what  they  were  able  to  ap- 
preciate as  the  exigencies  of  the  case  they  strove 
to  conserve. 

Francis  J.  Heney  in  his  opening-  statement  to 
the  jury  in  the  first  Ford  trial  said  he  would  prove 
that  the  supervisors  were  paid  in  two  install- 
ments ;  that  he  would  trace  the  money  from  the 
U.  S.  Mint  to  which  it  had  been  wired  from  the 
East  to  Calhoun's  order,  to  Ruef,-  and  thence  to 
the  supervisors.  He  would  prove  that  the  first 
payment  made  to  Ford  "was  composed  largely 
of  one  and  two  dollar  bills,  together  with  five  and 
ten  and  twenty  dollar  bills,  twenty  dollars  being 
about  the  largest  bill  there  was  in  the  package ; 
these  bills  being  bills  that  had  been  sent  into  the 
Relief  Corporation  largely  by  mail  in  small 
amounts — many  of  them  being  one  and  two  dol- 
lar bills."  He  also  purposed  proving  that  the 
second  payment  was  "in  large  size  bills  of  not 
less  than  fifty  and  probably  not  less  than  one  hun- 
dred dollars  apiece."  He  had  no  difficulty  in 
proving  that  the  railroad  officials  received  the 
money  from  the  mint  in  installments  such  as  he 
described.  Of  that  there  was  no  denial.  All 
the  banks  having  been  destroyed  by  fire,  in  the 
emergency  all  banking  business  was  handled  at 
the  mint.  There  was  no  secrecy  about  this  busi- 
ness. It  was  easy  to  establish  the  facts,  but  to 
prove  that  the  money  paid  on  a  certain  occasion 


98  THE    REGENERATORS 

passed  into  the  hands  of  the  supervisors  was  an- 
other matter.  In  truth  the  prosecution  had 
picked  up  the  wrong  trail,  and  precisely  for 
that  reason  there  was  much  contradictory  testi- 
mony. 

Supervisor  Boxton  testified  at  the  first 
trial  that  the  payments  were  made  just  as 
Heney  said  they  were  made.  But  before  the 
grand  jury  he  had  testified  that  there  were  no 
bills  "as  small  as  a  dollar  or  two  dollars."  Super- 
visor Davis,  before  the  grand  jury,  was  asked  if 
one  of  the  payments  was  in  small  bills,  prin- 
cipally one  and  two  dollar  bills.  He  made  this 
answer,  "I  don't  think  any  of  mine  were  that 
way,  no."  At  the  first  Ford  trial  he  said  of  the 
first  payment,  "If  I  recollect  rightly  the  size  of 
the  bills  were  small  denominations,  ones,  twos, 
fives,  twenties."  At  subsequent  trials  he  in- 
troduced the  "tens"  thus  bearing  out  Mr.  Heney 
to  the  letter.  Supervisor  Harrigan  testified  be- 
fore the  grand  jury  thus:  "The  size  of  the  bills 
in  the  first  payment  were  mostly  five,  fifty,  twenty, 
and  ten,  fifty  and  one  hundred.  They  ran  that 
way  in  all  those  payments."  Alark  the  change 
at  the  first  Ford  trial  when  speaking  of  the  first 
payment :  "I  think  they  v/ere  from  one  to  twenty 
dollars ;  think  there  were  two,  and  fives  and  tens 
in  first  payments."  Supervisor  Kelly  on  the  wit- 
ness stand  in  the  first  Ford  trial  testified  that 
the  bills  in  the  first  payment  ranged  from  $10 
to  $100  and   added,   "There  were   no  ones  and 


GRAFTERS    AND    PROSECUTORS         99 

twos."  He  more  nearly  approximated  the  Hcney 
version  at  subsequent  trials,  introducing  fives  and 
keeping  the  maximum  at  twenty.  Supervisor 
Lonergan  had  the  most  difficult  task  of  all  the 
supervisors  in  trying  to  approximate  the  Heney 
version.  Before  the  grand  jury  when  he  didn't 
know  what  Heney  wanted  to  prove  he  swore  that 
both  payments  were  in  bills  of  denominations 
ranging  from  $20  to  $500.  At  the  first  Ford 
trial  he  said  the  first  payment  was  in  bills  of 
small  denominations,  chiefly  twenties,  tens  and 
fives,  and  that  there  were  some  one  dollar  bills. 
Supervisor  Mamlock  testified  at  the  first  Ford 
trial  that  the  first  payment  was  in  five,  twenty  and 
one  hundred  dollar  bills.  He  repeated  this  testi- 
mony at  the  second  Ford  trial,  but  at  the  third  he 
professed  not  to  remember  the  denominations  in 
either  payment.  According  to  Supervisor  Nich- 
olas at  the  first  Ford  trial,  the  first  payment  was 
in  five  and  ten  dollar  bills.  He  was  positive  there 
were  no  twos.  At  the  third  Ford  trial  he  re- 
called that  there  were  some  two  dollar  bills  and 
also  that  there  was  exactly  one  one  dollar  bill. 
At  the  Calhoun  trial  he  remembered  that  (just  as 
Heney  said)  there  were  also  some  twenty  dol- 
lar bills  in  the  first  payment.  Supervisor  Walsh 
remembered  at  the  first  Ford  trial  that  the  bills 
in  the  first  payment  were  "mostly  large."  But 
at  the  second  trial  he  remembered  they  were 
small.  Unfortunately  he  remembered  at  this 
trial  that  the  bills  of  the  second  payment  were 


100  THE    REGENERATORS 

also  of  small  denominations.  At  the  next  trial 
he  made  no  effort  to  improve  his  testimony,  but 
of  the  second  payment  he  said,  "It  was  in  an 
envelope  and  I  could  not  say  what  denominations 
as  I  didn't  count  them."  Supervisor  Wilson's 
testimony  at  the  Gladstone  apartments  was  that 
both  payments  were  in  small  bills,  but  in  court 
he  made  his  testimony  accord  exactly  with  what 
Mr.  Heney  declared  that  he  would  prove. 

From  the  foregoing"  excerpts  it  certainly  ap- 
pears that  some  pretty  tall  swearing  was  done 
in  the  interest  of  civic  purity  under  the  auspices 
of  men  possessed  of  a  superfetation  of  civic  virtue 


VI 

RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY 

Experience  of  the  Former  Boss  in  the  Hands  of  the 

Regenerators ;    He    Bargains    for    Immunity, 

hut  Refuses  to  Give  the  Right  Kind  of 

Testimony  and  Is  Forsworn 

If  we  except  the  ridding  of  public  ofifice  tem- 
porarily of  grafters,  the  one  triumph  of  the 
Graft  Prosecution  was  the  putting  of  Abraham 
Ruef  behind  the  bars  of  a  penitentiary.  But 
as  grafters  have  come  and  gone  from  all  time, 
and  will  continue  to  come  and  go  while  we 
wait  the  halcyon  Millennium,  and  as  the  main 
object  of  the  regenerators  was  to  teach  bribe- 
givers the  salutary  lesson  that  it  is  more  hazard- 
ous to  set  the  snare  than  to  take  the  bait,  the 
conviction  of  Ruef  was  an  achievement  that 
afforded  his  prosecutors  much  less  glory  than 
might  ordinarily  have  been  expected.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  the  conviction  of  Ruef  afforded  the 
regenerators  nothing  but  humiliation.  There 
are  triumphs  that  mortify  the  victor,  and  this 
was  one  of  them.  A  time  there  was  when  all 
California  cherished  the  hope  that  San  Quentin 
was  Ruef's  destination ;  but  by  the  time  he 
reached  the  penitentiary  there  had  been  wrought 
a   great   change   in   public   sentiment.     For   the 


102  THE    REGENERATORS 

kind  of  justice  administered  to  Abraham  Ruef 
was  a  sorry  simulacrum  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
justice  guaranteed  to  every  American  citizen. 
If  beyond  the  borders  of  Russia,  in  the  history 
of  modern  times  subsequent  to  the  days  of  re- 
ligious persecution,  there  is  to  be  found  an  in- 
stance of  the  perversion  of  civic  authority  ap- 
proximating that  which  Abraham  Ruef  ex- 
perienced in  San  Francisco,  it  is  recorded  in 
annals  that  have  escaped  my  attention. 

Ruef's  experience  in  the  hands  of  the  regen- 
erators was  marked  by  a  series  of  ugly  scandals 
for  which  the  most  ingenious  would  find  it  diffi- 
cult to  devise  palliation.  His  treatment  from 
the  beginning  was  unusual.  When  arrested  in 
the  Spring  of  1907  he  was  not  ordered  into  the 
custody  of  the  sheriff  or  the  chief  of  police,  but 
into  the  custody  of  Elisor  W.  J.  Biggy,  who 
converted  a  private  residence  into  a  jail  for  the 
accommodation  of  his  prisoner.  Here  Ruef  was 
guarded  by  men  who  never  permitted  him  the 
enjoyment  of  solitude  for  a  moment ;  nor,  for 
a  time,  did  they  permit  him  to  have  any  visitors. 
Day  and  night,  for  many  weeks,  his  guards  sub- 
jected him  to  the  torture  of  the  "third  degree." 
At  brief  intervals  they  roused  him  out  of  his 
sleep,  and  told  him  of  things  which  they  pre- 
tended to  have  heard  him  say  while  dreaming. 
Nearly  every  day  he  was  visited  by  Detective 
Burns,  who,  to  obtain  a  confession,  cajoled  and 
threatened,  but  in  vain.     In  the  course  of  time 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      103 

Ruef's  health  was  undermined,  and  then  he  was 
put  on  trial  before  Judge  F.  H.  Dunne  under 
an  indictment  charging  him  with  the  extortion 
of  money  from  the  proprietors  of  what  are 
known  as  the  French  restaurants. 

These  restaurants,  it  should  be  explained,  are 
peculiar  to  San  Francisco.  They  are  spoken  of 
as  restaurants  euphemistically.  They  cater  chiefly 
to  persons  who  chafe  at  the  conventional  re- 
straints of  polite  society,  for  whom  are  provided 
special  accommodations  and  facilities.  Puritan- 
ical persons  regarded  these  restaurants  as  evi- 
dence of  the  looseness  of  the  city's  morals.  One 
day  the  police  commissioners  threatened  to 
cancel  the  license  by  virtue  of  which  the 
restaurants  were  conducted.  The  proprietors 
employed  Ruef  as  their  attorney.  And  Ruef 
dissuaded  the  commissioners  from  their  avowed 
purpose.  Now  it  was  believed  that  Ruef  in- 
spired the  threat  which  induced  his  employment; 
in  other  words  that  he  had  blackmailed  the  res- 
taurant keepers.  This  was  the  belief  of  the  re- 
generators even  at  the  time  that  Rudolph  Spreck- 
els  told  James  Gallagher  that  the  public  service 
corporations  were  his  objective  point  and  that 
he  was  willing  to  give  Ruef  immunity.  The 
public  were  told  that  the  evidence  of  Ruef's 
guilt  was  as  plain  as  a  pikestafif.  There  was  no 
escape  for  him,  according  to  the  regenerators, 
and  this  opinion  they  promulgated  for  public  con- 
sumption.    Still,   as   w??   learned   in   the   course 


104  THE    REGENERATORS 

of  events,  they  would  be  delighted  to  have  him 
plead  guilty. 

While  the  jury  was  being  impaneled  for  Ruef's 
trial  the  defendant  was  prevailed  upon  to  co- 
operate with  the  prosecution.  And  one  day, 
much  to  the  astonishment  of  everybody,  appar- 
ently even  to  the  astonishment  of  the  prosecu- 
tion, he  rose  in  court  and  pleaded  guilty  to  the 
charge.  The  prisoner  made  a  pathetic  speech, 
saying  among  other  things,  which  was  the  most 
curious  of  all  of  them,  that  whilst  he  pleaded 
guilty  he  w^as  innocent  of  the  crime  charged. 
Strong  men  shed  tears,  special  counsel  for  the 
Graft  Prosecution  shook  the  prisoner's  hand  with 
impressive  earnestness  and  warmth,  sympathiz- 
ing with  him  in  what  they  professed  to  regard 
as  his  repentant  mood.  The  Bulletin,  voicing 
the  sentiments  of  the  regenerators  and  sugges- 
tionizing  the  public  as  usual,  felicitated  Ruef  on 
his  fine  exhibition  of  Christian  manliness.  At 
the  same  time  the  people  were  reminded  of  the 
purifying  power  of  repentance,  and  were  told 
that  the  prisoner  had  been  persuaded  by  his  con- 
science to  make  reparation  for  his  misdeeds  by 
assisting  the  prosecution  in  their  glorious  work 
of  civic  reform.  What  all  the  while  was  going 
on  behind  the  scenes  a  few  were  able  to  con- 
jecture, but  the  public  were  kept  in  ignorance 
for  many  months.  That  they  had  accepted  as 
an  emotional  drama  what  was  in  reality  a  well- 
rehearsed  farce  the  general  had  not  the  slightest 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      105 

suspicion.  Ruef's  performance  on  that  occasion 
had  been  prearranged  by  the  regenerators  for 
theatric  effect.  For  that  occasion  the  temple  of 
justice  was  converted  into  a  playhouse.  Even 
the  solemn  judge  on  the  bench  was  not  uncon- 
scious of  the  precise  nature  of  the  part  he  was 
playing.  Incredible  to  be  sure,  but  none  the  less 
true.  The  regenerators  were  really  proud  of  that 
coup.  Read  the  American  Magazine  for  April, 
1908,  and  you  will  find  Detective  Burns  boasting 
of  the  consummate  artistry  of  it  all,  and  his  Bos- 
well,  (the  panegyrist  of  all  the  regenerators)  Mr. 
Lincoln  Steffens,  paying  him  the  tribute  of  his 
admiration.  You  will  not  learn  from  Mr.  Stef- 
fens, however,  the  why  and  wherefore  of  the 
humbuggery.  He  does  not  expound  the  pur- 
poses of  the  regenerators,  though  he  does  go  so 
far  as  to  divulge  the  fact  that  Ruef  had  a  con- 
tract for  immunity  and  was  to  be  given  im- 
munity "if  he  would  tell  the  truth."  All  of 
which  should  be  borne  in  mind,  for  Steffens  was 
the  official  mouthpiece  of  the  prosecution. 

When  Ruef  pleaded  guilty  there  was  no  rea- 
son, so  far  as  anybody  could  see,  why  he  should 
not  be  sentenced  on  the  spot.  Ordinarily  the  man 
that  pleads  guilty  is  in  a  hurry  to  be  sentenced. 
The  sooner  he  is  sentenced,  the  sooner  he  serves 
his  term  and  gains  his  liberty.  But  Ruef,  it  is 
important  we  should  note,  was  not  sentenced. 
The  plea  of  guilty  was  entered  in  May,-  1907. 
The  summer  waxed  and  waned,  and  Ruef's  fate 


106  THE    REGENERATORS 

was  still  a  matter  of  conjecture.  At  brief  in- 
tervals he  appeared  in  court  for  no  other  pur- 
pose than  to  hear  Judge  Dunne  postpone  his 
sentence,  and  for  a  long  time  he  acquiesced  in 
these  postponements  as  though  he  quite  under- 
stood the  situation  and  was  satisfied.  Mean- 
time he  appeared  before  the  grand  jury,  and 
gave  much  testimony  with  which  the  regenerators 
seemed  to  be  much  pleased.  He  and  the  regen- 
erators were  now  on  the  most  amicable  terms. 
Presently  he  appeared  as  a  witness  for  the  prose- 
cution on  the  trial  of  his  old  friend  Eugene 
Schmitz.  And  of  course  the  man  who  had 
shortly  before  made  the  whole  town  weep  was 
an  impressive  witness ;  especially  so  as  the  im- 
munity contract  was  under  lock  and  key.  On 
Ruef's  testimony  Schmitz  was  convicted.  He 
was  sentenced,  too,  but  he  took  an  appeal. 

And  still  the  suspending  of  Ruef's  sentence 
went  on  from  week  to  week.  And  people  won- 
dered why.  It  was  surmised  of  course  that  Ruef 
had  exacted  some  measure  of  leniency  from  the 
prosecution,  but  not  for  a  moment  did  that  un- 
sophisticated and  credulous  person,  the  average 
citizen,  entertain  the  notion  that  Ruef  was  not 
to  be  punished  at  all.  Yet  what  more  natural 
than  the  question,  H  he  is  to  be  punished  why 
not  punish  him?  Certainly  if  he  was  to  be 
punished  it  would  be  advantageous  to  the  prose- 
cution to  inflict  the  punishment,  since,  then,  his 
testimony  would  not  be  weakened  by  the  sus- 
picion that  it  had  been  purchased  with  immunity. 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      107 

Presently  the  truth  was  unlocked  and  per- 
mitted to  flutter  into  the  light  of  day.  The  key 
was  supplied  by  the  appellate  court,  which  ren- 
dered a  decision  in  the  Schmitz  case  to  the  effect 
that  the  indictment  was  fatally  defective.  This 
decision,  which  will  be  discussed  in  another 
chapter,  had  the  effect  of  lightning.  It  clarified 
the  atmosphere.  The  Schmitz  indictment  was 
the  same  as  the  Ruef  indictment,  the  one  to 
which  Ruef  had  pleaded  guilty.  His  plea  of 
guilty  was  therefore  of  no  avail  to  the  prosecu- 
tion, since  the  indictment  was  fatally  defective. 
The  sentence  that  had  been  postpone^,  for  seven 
months  need  be  postponed  no  longer.  Presently 
out  came  the  story  of  all  that  occurred  before 
the  plea  of  guilty.  It  came  out  in  a  series  of 
aflidavits  bristling  with  ugly  accusations  against 
the  regenerators.  The  principal  affidavit  was 
Ruef's.  It  was  corroborated  by  the  affidavits  of 
two  clergymen,  rabbis  of  the  synagogue,  the 
Rev.  J.  Nieto  and  the  Rev.  B.  M.  Kaplan.  And 
what  these  gentlemen  were  unable  to  corroborate 
there  was  much  circumstantial  evidence  to  sup- 
port. 

From  these  affidavits  it  appears  that  after  sub- 
jecting Ruef  to  the  "third  degree"  for  a  period 
of  six  or  seven  weeks,  the  regenerators  solicited 
the  aid  of  the  two  clergymen.  Failing  to  break 
the  prisoner  down  by  any  of  the  expedients  com- 
monly practiced  by  the  police,  they  appealed  to 
the  rabbis  to  urgfe  him  in  behalf  of  his  mother 


108  THE    REGENERATORS 

and  sisters,  who,  Ruef  well  knew,  were  suffer- 
ing great  mental  anguish.  According  to  these 
clergymen  it  was  represented  to  them  that  Ruef 
could  render  a  great  public  service  by,  making 
certain  disclosures ;  that  if  he  would  do  so  he 
would  be  set  free,  whereas  if  he  refused  he  would 
be  sent  to  the  penitentiary  for  life.  The  clergy- 
men knowing  the  great  distress  of  Ruef's  aged 
parents,  for  their  sake  agreed  to  urge  Ruef  to 
confess.  "It  was  evident  to  me,"  says  Dr.  Kap- 
lan in  his  affidavit,  "that  every  member  of  his 
family  was  deeply  attached  to  the  defendant, 
and  that  they  were  all  on  the  verge  of  collapse. 
I  considered  that  it  would  be  an  act  of  divine 
mercy  to  them  if  the  defendant  even  at  a  sac- 
rifice to  himself  brought  them  some  peace  of 
mind  and  comfort.  I  told  this  to  the  defendant, 
and  I  also  assured  him  that  we  would  all  assist 
in  re-establishing  him  in  public  estimation  should 
he  assist  in  the  moral  regeneration  of  the  city 
by  making  the  disclosures  as  requested." 

In  the  first  interview  with  Ruef  the  clergymen 
failed  to  move  him.  Ruef  was  adamant.  They 
reported  that  it  was  useless  to  urge  him  fur- 
ther. Then,  Dr.  Kaplan  tells  us,  he  was  asked 
to  try  again.  Rudolph  Spreckels  and  Francis  J. 
Heney  begged  him  in  the  interest  of  the  com- 
munity to  plead  for  a  confession.  "We  were 
authorized,"  says  Rabbi  Kaplan,  "to  say  to  Mr. 
Ruef  that  Mr.  Schmitz,  the  mayor  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, had  offered  to  tell  all  he  knew  of  these 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      109 

matters  and  to  'throw  down'  Mr.  Ruef,  but  the 
offer  had  been  rejected,  and  that  all  the  public 
service  corporations  were  also  ready  to  make  a 
scape-goat  of  him.*  but  that  they  preferred  to 
prosecute  the  men  connected  with  the  public 
service  corporations,  as  they  considered  them  the 
fountain  heads  of  municipal  corruption,  rather 
than  Mr.  Ruef  to  whom  they  were  willing-  to 
grant  complete  immunity ;  that  Ruef  was  a  man 
of  great  ability,  had  many  friends  and  would 
soon  and  easily  restore  himself  to  public  con- 
fidence, and  they  said  that  neither  they  nor  any 
one  connected  with  the  prosecution  had  any 
animosity  or  hard  feeling  against  Mr.  Ruef,  and 
at  that  time  as  well  as  on  many  other  occasions 
Mr.  Heney  stated  in  my  presence  that  he  per- 
sonally liked  and  admired  Mr.  Ruef." 

Finally,  when  told  that  his  mother  was  sick 
unto  death,  Ruef  agreed  to  accept  immunity. 
The  first  demand  made  upon  him  was  that  he 
should  plead  guilty  in  the  French  restaurant  case 
which  was  then  on  trial.  It  was  explained  that 
he  would  be  permitted  at  some  future  time  to 
withdraw  the  plea,  and  that  the  case  would  then 
be  dismissed.  The  plan  as  outlined  was  to  give 
him  a  written  contract  of  immunity  on  all 
charges  save  the  one  upon  which  he  was  being 
tried,  and  as  to  that  charge  to  give  him  a  verbal 
guarantee  that  it  would  be  dismissed.  This  is 
what  is  sworn  to  by  Ruef  and  the  two  clergy- 


*  Neither    Schmitz    nor    the    officials    of    the    public    service 
corporations   ever   asked   for  immunity. 


no  THE    REGENERATORS 

men,   and  to  their  testimony   there   are  circum- 
stances that  give  verisimiHtucle. 

This  was  a  curious  plan,  by  no  means  intel- 
ligible at  first  blush.  What  reason  was  there 
for  two  separate  agreements  ?  From  the  lucid  ex- 
planation given  by  Ruef  and  his  friends  it  ap- 
pears there  was  a  cogent  reason.  And  the  ex- 
planation considered  in  connection  with  facts, 
about  which  there  is  no  dispute,  is  not  at  all  im- 
plausible. The  explanation  is  that  it  was  for- 
seen  that  as  a  witness  Ruef  would  be  asked  if  he 
was  not  testifying  because  he  had  been  promised 
immunity.  Then  would  the  immunity  contract 
be  the  best  evidence,  and  the  inference  from  it 
would  be  that  there  was  punishment  in  store  for 
Ruef.  Besides  Schmitz  was  to  be  tried  for  ex- 
tortion, and  if  Ruef  pleaded  guilty  the  presump- 
tion naturally  would  be  that  Schmitz  was  guilty 
too ;  for  in  the  French  restaurant  cases  they 
were  said  to  be  co-conspirators. 

But  Ruef  stoutly  objected  to  pleading  guilty. 
He  insisted  that  he  was  innocent  of  the  charge ; 
that  the  restaurant  keepers  had  not  been  black- 
mailed, and  that  he  could  prove  his  innocence. 
He  was  told  he  must  plead  guilty  and  on  no 
other  condition  would  he  be  granted  immunity. 
At  length  he  wavered,  expressing  doubt,  how- 
ever, as  to  whether  the  district  attorney  would 
be  able  to  carry  out  the  proposed  agreement. 
It  was  sought  to  dissipate  his  scepticism  with  as- 
surances   the    soundness    of    which    subsequent 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      111 

events  vindicated.  Ruef  tells  us  of  these  as- 
surances :  "It  was  stated  to  me  by  said  Burns, 
by  said  Heney,  and  by  said  Langdon  in  tiie 
presence  of  said  Dr.  Kaplan,  and  by  said  lUirns 
to  me  in'  the  presence  of  Dr.  Nieto  that  Jud^s^e 
Dunne  and  Judge  Lawlor  were  in  sympathy  and 
agreement  with  .the  prosecution  and  that  they 
would  co-operate  with  the  prosecution,  and  also 
that  the  presiding'  judge  of  the  Superior  Court 
had  agreed  to  assign  all  indictments  in  these 
'graft  cases,'  including  all  indictments  returned 
or  to  be  returned  against  myself,  only  to  the  two 
departments  of  the  Superior  Court  presided  over 
by  said  Judges  Dunne  and  Lawlor." 

Despite  these  assurances  Ruef  was  sceptical. 
He  desired  assurances  from  the  judges  them- 
selves that  the  compact  would  be  kept.  Then 
were  arrangements  made  for  what  has  since 
been  known  as  "the  midnight  meeting."  The 
story  of  this  memorable  meeting  is  told  by  the 
clergymen.  On  the  night  of  April  27 ,  1907,  they 
accompanied  Heney  and  Burns  to  the  Temple 
Israel  where  court  was  held  temporarily  after 
the  fire  of  1906.  First  they  entered  Judge  Law- 
lor's  chambers.  The  judge  was  on  hand.  What 
occurred  Dr.  Kaplan  relates : — 

"Mr.  Heney  said  to  the  judge  in  effect,  'We 
may  have  to  ask  you  in  regard  to  certain  cases 
which  will  come  up  in  your  court  to — '  And 
about  that  time  Judge  Lawlor  interrupted  Mr. 
Heney  and  said  in  effect,  T  do  not  wish  to  go 


112  THE    REGENERATORS 

into  particulars.  I  have  confidence  in  tiie  dis- 
trict attorney's  office,  and  so  long  as  I  have  con- 
fidence in  the  district  attorney's  office  it  has  been 
the  practice  of  this  court  to  act  favorably  on  any 
recommendations  or  requests  made  by  the  dis- 
trict attorney's  office  in  open  court.'  " 

This  was  as  far  as  Judge  Lawlor  would  go. 
His  language  as  quoted  is  somewhat  equivocal, 
but  Judge  Lawlor  is  instinctively  cautious  on 
all  occasions.  He  spoke,  and  then  he  left  the 
room.  The  affiant  goes  on :  "Thereupon  Dr. 
Nieto  and  myself,  not  being  familiar  with  the 
practice  of  courts  and  not  being  attorneys,  asked 
Mr.  Heney  whether  we  were  to  understand  from 
the  statement  of  the  judge  just  made  that  he 
had  given  the  assurances  desired,  namely,  that 
any  case  against  Mr.  Ruef  which  might  be  as- 
signed to  his  department  should  upon  motion  of 
the  district  attorney  be  dismissed.  To  which 
Mr.  Heney  replied,  'Certainly.'  " 

Judge  Dunne  received  the  detective  the  rep- 
resentative of  the  district  attorney  and  the  two 
clergymen  in  his  chambers  between  the  midnight 
hour  and  one  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Judge 
Dunne  is  not  so  discreet  nor  so  prudent  a  man  as 
Judge  Lawlor.  He  was  not  averse  to  commit- 
ting himself  outright  in  the  presence  of  the 
clergymen.  He  did  not  perceive  the  advisability 
of  interrupting  Mr.  Heney  or  leaving  the  door 
open  for  equivocation.     Says  Dr.  Kaplan : 

"Mr.  Heney  said  in  effect  to  Judge  Dunne,  'We 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      113 

are  negotiating  with  Mr.  Riief  to  'come  through' 
and  we  want  him  to  plead  guihy  to  the  charge 
now  on  trial  before  you.  We  may  ask  you  to 
allow  him  to  withdraw  that  plea  and  to  substitute 
the  plea  of  'Not  Guilty'  and  dismiss  the  indict- 
ment against  him.'  To  which  Judge  Dunne  sub- 
stantially replied  as  follows :  'I  have  every  con- 
fidence in  the  district  attorney's  office  and  will 
do  what  you  ask.'  Thereupon  I  asked  Judge 
Dunne  whether  I  was  to  understand  that  if  Mr. 
Ruef  pleaded  'Guilty'  that  he  would  permit  and 
consent  to  the  plea  being  withdrawn  and  the 
plea  of  'Not  Guilty'  substituted  and  the  indict- 
ment dismissed,  to  which  he  answered,  'Yes,  sir; 
yes,  sir;  certainly.'  After  that,  as  the  judge  was 
about  to  leave  the  room,  I  again  asked  him,  in 
effect :  'Your  honor,  do  you  mean  to  say  you 
would  allow  the  plea  to  be  withdrawm  and  dis- 
miss the  case?'  To  which  the  judge  responded, 
'Yes,  yes ;  certainly,'  and  took  his  departure." 

The  clergymen  reported  to  Ruef  all  that  had 
occurred  at  the  midnight  meeting.  The  terms 
of  the  prosecution  were  then  accepted.  On  this 
occasion  District  Attorney  Langdon  was  present, 
and  this  gentleman,  we  learn  from  Dr.  Kaplan's 
affidavit,  said  to  Ruef:  "It  is  understood  that  we 
did  not  discuss  with  you  the  matter  of  the  with- 
drawal of  the  plea  of  guilty ;  you  can  rely  on 
the  reverend  gentlemen."  On  the  same  occasion, 
Dr.  Kaplan  tells  us,  Mr.  Heney  explained  that 
as  a  matter  of  policy  Ruef  would  be  expected  "to 


114  THE    REGENERATORS 

keep  secret  all  arrangements,"  which  he  did,  and 
pleaded  guilty  after  rehearsal. 

On  May  20,  1907,  Ruef  was  summoned  before 
the  grand  jury,  and  he  told  the  whole  sordid 
story  of  his  relations  with  the  supervisors  and 
with  the  public  service  corporations.  At  the 
close  of  the  session  he  was  thanked  by  Heney 
who  appeared  to  be  well  satisfied  with  his  testi- 
mony. Months  passed  without  anything  occur- 
ring to  give  indication  of  a  breach  between  the 
prosecution  and  the  star  witness.  Yet  perfect 
harmony  had  not  been  maintained.  When 
Schmitz  was  on  trial.  Ruef,  as  he  tells  us  in 
his  affidavit,  informed  the  district  attorney  that 
he  would  not  make  a  good  witness  against  the 
defendant.  "I  told  them,"  he  says,  "that  as  no 
extortion  had  been  committed  I  should  be  obliged 
so  to  testify,  and  that  if  I  made  a  truthful  state- 
ment of  all  the  facts  cross-examination  would 
demonstrate  that  no  extortion  whatever  had  been 
committed  by  either  Schmitz  or  myself." 

He  adds  that  the  prosecution  tried  to  persuade 
him  to  change  his  testimony.  Detective  Burns 
told  him  he  was  not  keeping  his  contract,  and 
threatened  him  with  prosecution.  But  the  next 
day  Burns  submitted  to  him  a  typewritten  set  of 
questions  which  had  been  prepared  by  Heney, 
and  demanded  that  he  should  write  his  answers 
thereto.  Ruef  did  so.  Subsequently  he  was 
told  by  Burns  in  the  presence  of  Dr.  Kaplan  that 
his  answers  were  satisfactory,  and  that  he  would 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      115 

be  called  to  the  witness  stand.  "I  told  Burns," 
says  Ruef,  that  I  did  not  believe  my  answers  and 
proposed  testimony,  even  as  so  written,  would 
do  the  prosecution  any  good,  because  while  true, 
it  would  open  the  doors  for  a  full  cross-examina- 
tion by  defendant's  counsel,  when  all  the  facts 
would  come  out,  and  that  the  larger  part  of  the 
same  would  be  extremely  favorable  to  Schmitz. 
Burns  said  to  me  in  the  presence  of  Dr.  Kaplan 
that  the  prosecution  would  take  its  chances  on 
that  and  would  take  care  of  the  cross-examina- 
tion, and  that  Mr.  Heney  did  guarantee  that 
nothing  would  be  allowed  to  be  brought  out  on 
cross-examination  unfavorable  to  the  prosecu- 
tion." 

At  this  same  interview  Burns  warned  Ruef 
against  giving  any  testimony  about  the  im- 
munity contract.  "I  told  Mr.  Burns  in  the 
presence  of  Dr.  Kaplan,"  says  Ruef,  "that  I 
could  not  deny  that  agreement  if  properly  ques- 
tioned, but  that  the  best  thing  to  do  in  the  mat- 
ter would  be  to  allow  me  to  withdraw  my  plea 
and  have  the  case  dismissed  before  I  went  upon 
the  stand  as  a  witness  in  the  case.  This,  Mr. 
Burns  said,  the  prosecution  could  not  do  as  it 
would  affect  the  result  in  the  Schmitz  case.  I 
then  asked  Mr.  Burns  how,  upon  a  proper  cross- 
examination,  he  or  the  prosecution  could  expect 
to  keep  from  the  jury  the  facts  relative  to  said 
agreement  to  withdraw  my  plea ;  he  stated  to 
me   that   the   prosecution   would   attend   to   that 


116  THE    REGENERATORS 

and  I  need  give  myself  no  concern  about  it. 
I  said  to  Mr.  Burns  in  effect  as  follows :  'Judge 
Dunne  knows  all  about  this  agreement  and  about 
the  withdrawal  of  my  plea.  How  could  I  re- 
frain from  disclosing  it?'  He  said  that  Mr. 
Heney  would  take  care  of  that,  and  that  I  need 
not  worry  about  it ;  he  and  Heney  would  guar- 
antee that  it  would  not  be  brought  out." 

Just  before  going  on  the  witness  stand  Ruef 
was  again  admonished  by  Burns  in  the  presence 
of  Dr.  Kaplan  to  say  nothing  about  the  immunity 
contract,  and  if  necessary  to  deny  that  any 
agreement  existed  with  reference  to  the  plea  in 
the  extortion  case.  "I  told  him,"  said  Ruef, 
"that  even  if  I  were  willing  to  do  as  requested, 
which  I  was  not,  that  I  would  be  a  fool  to  do 
so  from  the  standpoint  of  my  own  interests,  as 
T  would  thereby  be  effectually  debarred  there- 
after from  ever  insisting  that  such  an  agreement 
had  been  made." 

Fortunately  there  was  no  necessity  for  per- 
jury. Heney  had  made  no  idle  boast  to  Burns. 
The  cross-examination  was  most  discreetly  re- 
stricted. Ruef  tells  about  it  thus :  "When  direct 
questions  were  asked  by  the  attorneys  for  the  de- 
fendant to  which  a  categorical  answer  could  not 
be  avoided,  which  categorical  answer  would  have 
disclosed  material  truths  regarding  the  facts  of 
the  case  and  also  would  have  disclosed  said 
agreements  of  immunity  and  the  said  agreement 
to  withdraw  the  plea,  the  said  Heney  objected 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      117 

to  said  questions,  and  his  ol)jections  were  by  said 
court,  Judge  Dunne  presiding",  sustained." 

All  of  which  may  seem  improbable.  Here 
we  have  a  very  grave  accusation  against  a  min- 
ister of  justice,  one  whom  the  public  of  San 
Francisco  greatly  admired  for  the  inflexible  integ- 
rity he  was  believed  to  have  exhibited  through- 
out the  Graft  Prosecution.  Implicated  with  him 
in  this  ugly  accusation  are  the  civic  patriots  whci 
were  given  carte-blanche  to  regenerate  and  re-i 
deem  a  city.  But  is  it  true  that  they  stifled  in- 
quiry? For  answer  let  us  consult  the  transcript 
on  appeal  in  the  case  of  the  People  vs.  Eugene 
Schmitz.  Let  us  look  to  the  record  and  see 
whether  the  judge  on  the  bench,  who  had  been 
made  a  party  to  the  secret  immunity  contract, 
suppressed  the  truth  and  vindicated  the  guar- 
antee given  to  Ruef  "that  Mr.  Heney  would  take 
care  of  that."  From  the  transcript  ft  appears 
that  on  direct  examination  Ruef  was  asked 
whether  he  had  paid  Schmitz  any  of  the  money 
received  from  the  French  restaurant  keepers. 
He  said  that  he  had.  Asked  whether  he  told 
Schmitz  that  the  money  was  his  share,  he  an- 
swered :  "I  didn't  say  to  him  it  was  his  share. 
I  did  say  to  him  that  I  had  received  from  the 
French  restaurants  $5,000,  and  that  if  he  would 
accept  half  of  it  I  should  be  glad  to  give  it  to 
him.  Thereupon  I  gave  it  to  him."  On  cross- 
examination  he  admitted  that  the  prosecutors 
had  promised  to  "secure  leniency"  for  him ;  also 


118  THE    REGENERATORS 

that  he  had  told  them  that  "some  particulars" 
of  his  testimony  would  be  favorable  to  the  de- 
fendant. 

"Well,  what  particulars  of  your  testimony  did 
you  refer  to  then?"  was  the  question  put  by 
counsel  for  the  defendant,  one  of  the  firm  of 
Metson,  Campbell  &  Drew.  Heney  objected, 
and  the  objection  was  sustained. 

The  next  question :  "Did  you  at  any  conver- 
sation with  these  gentlemen  tell  them  that  you 
would  not  stand  for  anything  save  and  except 
complete  immunity?" 

Again  came  an  objection  from  Heney,  and 
Judge  Dunne  sustained  the  objection,  saying: 
"You  keep  asking  him  the  same  question.  You 
are  using  equivalent  (?)  language.  It  is  the 
same  tone,  the  same  purpose.  I  have  no  objec- 
tion to  your  asking  him  if  he  is  going  to  receive 
immunity,  and  let  it  go  at  that,  but  you  are  ask- 
ing him  the  same  thing  in  different  forms,  every 
question." 

After  some  questioning  about  other  matters 
the  important  query  was  put  in  this  form :  "Now 
I  will  ask  you,  Mr.  Ruef,  if  you  are  not  now  giv- 
ing your  testimony  under  the  expectation  and 
hope  of  immunity,  complete  immunity?" 

Heney  objected,  and  Judge  Dunne  sustained 
the  objection. 

It  also  appears  from  the  transcript  that  Ruef 
admitted  on  cross-examination  that  when  he 
pleaded  guilty  to  the  charge  of  extortion,  he  said : 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      119 

"I  am  not  guilty  of  the  offense  charged  in  this 
indictment."  But  when  he  was  asked  if  that 
statement  was  true,  Heney  objected  and  the  ob- 
jection  was    sustained. 

So  we  see  it  was  indeed  a  most  restricted 
cross-examination  that  was  permitted  when 
Ruef  was  on  the  witness  stand.  Yet  Ruef 
had  been  called  to  rebut  testimony  given  by 
Schmitz  under  cross-examination.  And  in 
that  cross-examination  Heney  was  allowed  ex- 
ceptional latitude.  Schmitz,  called  in  his 
own  behalf,  was  questioned  on  only  two 
points ;  about  a  conversation  with  a  French  res- 
taurant keeper,  and  about  a  conversation  with  a 
police  commissioner.  Then  Heney  was  allowed 
to  take  him  in  hand,  and  conduct  a  thorough  in- 
quiry into  all  his  relations  with  Ruef.  This  I 
advert  to  merely  to  indicate  the  attitude  of  the 
court,  not  to  throw  any  light  on  the  question  of 
guilt  or  innocence,  though,  in  passing,  it  is  per- 
tinent to  remark  that  Ruef's  relations  with 
Schmitz  were  in  a  measure  akin  to  those  of  Ruef 
and  the  supervisors.  There  is  no  evidence  any- 
where tending  to  show  that  Schmitz  was  ever  a 
party  to  any  bargain  made  by  Ruef  with  any 
person  who  had  business  dealings  with  the 
municipal  government. 

Perhaps  it  is  also  pertinent  to  add  that  not  a 
scintilla  of  testimony  is  to  be  found  implicating 
Schmitz  in  the  trolley  franchise  deal,  while  on 
the  other  hand  it  is  admitted  that  one  of  the 


120  THE    REGENERATORS 

most  valuable  things  obtained  from  the  munic- 
ipality under  the  Schmitz  regime  was  a  railroad 
franchise,  which  was  granted  in  consideration  of 
nothing  but  Schmitz's  friendship  for  J.  Downey 
Harvey,  an  intimate  friend  of  both  Rudolph 
Spreckels  and  James  D.  Phelan.  This  franchise 
which  cost  Harvey  and  his  associates  nothing, 
Harvey  publicly  declared  to  be  worth  five  mil- 
lion dollars.  So  Schmitz  was  not  so  sordid  as  he 
might  have  been.  On  the  contrary  he  was  a 
grafter  of  generous  impulses.  It  is  known  that 
he  was  on  the  point  of  putting  through  the 
Parkside  franchise  without  cost  to  anybody  when 
the  supervisors  balked  and  necessitated  the  em- 
ployment of  Ruef. 

Let  us  revert  again  to  the  Ruef  affidavit.  We 
learn  from  it  that  after  giving  his  testimony  in 
the  Schmitz  case  Ruef  was  complimented  by 
Heney,  Burns  and  Langdon.  They  were  pleased 
with  his  testimony  and  assured  him  they  would 
carry  out  their  agreement.  Three  months — 
July,  Augtist  and  September — passed  by,  and 
Ruef  was  growing  impatient.  Detention  was 
irksome.  He  longed  to  be  free  as  air  and  in- 
dependent as  the  wind.  In  his  sequestered  cor- 
ner there  was  too  much  madding  uncertainty. 
He  urged  his  keepers  to  allow  him  to  withdraw 
his  plea  and  have  done  with  it.  "They  told  me," 
says  Ruef,  "that  they  feared  it  would  hurt  their 
-case  if  it  should  become  known  by  the  with- 
drawal of  said  plea  that  I  was  to  go  unpunished. 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      121 

until  they  had  secured  the  conviction  of  some 
of  the  other  persons  against  whom  indictments 
had  been  returned." 

Dr.  Kaplan  reminded  the  regenerators  that 
it  had  been  agreed  to  permit  Ruef  to  withdraw 
the  plea  immediately  after  the  close  of  the 
Schmitz  case.  But  Langdon  could  not  remember 
that  any  definite  time  had  been  agreed  upon. 
And  all  the  while  Judge  Dunne  was  vindicating 
the  good  faith  of  the  prosecutors  by  postponing 
sentence  from  week  to  week.  Surely  Ruef  ought 
to  be  satisfied  that  immunity  eventually  would 
come  to  him,  since  it  was  clear  that  if  Judge 
Dunne  did  not  intend  to  keep  his  promise  he 
would  pass  sentence  and  thus  silence  the  vagrant 
rumors  in  circulation  that  the  fallen  boss  had 
made  certain  of  his  own  freedom  before  con- 
fessing. 

Meanwhile  the  newspaper  critics  of  the  Graft 
Prosecution  were  making  the  situation  uncom- 
fortable for  the  regenerators  by  complaining 
that  Ruef  was  being  vmduly  pampered  at  public 
expense.  Why  should  he  be  kept  in  a  luxurious 
residence?  they  asked.  They  complained  that 
the  manner  of  his  detention  was  costly,  and 
argued  that  he  ought  to  be  sent  cither  to  the 
penitentiary  or  to  the  county  jail.  All  the  while 
the  expenses  of  his  imprisonment  were  being 
paid  under  court  orders  issued  by  Judge  Dunne. 

The  prosecutors,  squirming  under  the  lash  of 
criticism,    told    Ruef    in    September,    1907,    that 


122  THE    REGENERATORS 

he  would  have  to  go  to  jail  unless  he  agreed 
to  pay  his  own  expenses.  Assured  that  the 
period  of  his  detention  would  not  exceed  six 
weeks,  he  decided  to  let  the  burden  shift  from 
the  taxpayers  to  himself.  The  first  trial  of  Tirey 
L.  Ford  was  then  in  progress.  Ruef  expected 
to  be  called  as  a  witness.  One  day  he  was  visited 
by  Dr.  Kaplan  who  told  him  that  the  prosecu- 
tion wished  him  to  strengthen  the  testimony 
which  he  had  given  before  the  grand  jury.  He 
told  Dr.  Kaplan  that  he  had  been  spoken  to  on 
the  subject  by  Burns,  who,  he  said,  evidently 
wished  him  to  commit  perjury.  While  they 
were  talking  Burns  made  his  appearance.  Ad- 
dressing Ruef  the  detective  said :  "I  am  getting 
hell.  We  are  not  satisfied  with  your  testimony 
in  this  matter.  You've  got  to  make  it  stronger 
against  Ford  and  Calhoun.  You  are  holding 
back.  If  you  don't  testify  to  convict  Ford  and 
help  us  to  convict  him  and  Calhoun  you  can't 
expect  favors  from  us.  I  wash  my  hands  of 
the  immunity  contract.  I  won't  be  intermediary 
any  longer." 

Ruef's  reply,  according  to  his  affidavit,  was  in 
these  words :  "I  could  not  and  would  not  live 
with  a  consciousness  and  knowledge  that  a  false 
oath  and  perjured  testimony  from  me  had  con- 
victed any  man.  I  would  not  give  such  testi- 
mony if  ten  thousand  years  of  imprisonment 
stared  me  in  the  face."  Knowing  Ruef  as  a  man 
of  faint  scruple  this  utterance  comes  to  us  with 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      123 

a  theatric  ring-.  It  is  like  the  self-approbation  of 
a  man  who  has  made  a  fine  figure  of  himself  in 
his  own  imagination.  Yet  there  may  be  some- 
thing of  sincerity  in  this  self-conscious  verdict. 
In  this  connection  it  may  be  worth  while  to  in- 
dulge in  speculative  reflection  touching  the 
character  of  the  leading  villain  of  the  graft 
drama.  Ruef  abounds  in  obliquities  of  character. 
Educated,  vain,  capable  of  the  most  generous 
acts,  yet  meanness  seems  to  cling  to  his  every 
motion.  Far  from  harmonious  is  his  moral  and 
intellectual  nature.  The  lust  of  avarice  seized 
on  him  early  in  his  career,  begetting  more  vices 
than  Priam  did  children.  In  his  quest  of  fees 
he  became  a  pettifogger  at  the  bar,  developing  a 
skill  in  sharp  practice ;  yet  he  gained  a  reputa- 
tion for  benevolence,  and  in  politics  he  plumed 
himself  on  his  reputation  for  square  dealing  with 
men.  What  man  has  not  some  redeeming  qual- 
ity? No  man  is  spotted  all  over  with  iniquity. 
The  brutalest  barbarian  has  something  spiritual 
in  his  nature.  Now  is  it  incredible  that  there 
was  a  limit  to  Ruef's  capacity  for  evil?  Are  we 
to  doubt  there  was  a  single  crime  at  which  his 
calloused  sensibilities  revolted?  He  tells  us  that 
he  refused  to  adapt  his  testimony  to  the  ex- 
igencies of  the  case  against  the  higher-ups ;  and 
if  you  examine  all  the  circumstances,  even  apart 
from  the  testimony  that  Rudolph  Spreckels's  "ob- 
jective point  was  the  public  service  corporations," 
you  will  find  it  hard  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that 


124  THE    REGENERATORS 

Abraham  Ruef  is  today  a  convict  not  because  he 
sinned  against  the  law  but  because  he  would  not 
perjure  himself  that  others  might  be  sent  to  the 
penitentiary.  Assuredly  it  is  not  to  be  gainsaid 
that  it  was  in  his  power  to  make  impossible  the 
acquittal  of  several  men  under  indictment.  He 
need  only  have  sworn  that  the  money  he  received 
was  given  to  him  to  be  given  to  public  officials 
as  a  bribe.  There  was  but  a  slight  difference  be- 
tween the  language  of  the  testimony  he  gave 
and  the  language  of  the  testimony  demanded, 
but  that  difference  he  would  not  efface.  Whether 
he  might  have  obtained  his  liberty  by  giving  the 
testimony  demanded  is  another  question.  Prom- 
ises are  like  pie  crust.  Even  written  contracts 
may  be  broken  as  we  learn  from  Ruef's  ex- 
perience, for  he  was  prosecuted  on  one  of  the 
charges  covered  by  the  black  and  white  instru- 
ment of  immunity. 

If  to  believe  all  that  Ruef  has  said  about  his 
bargain  were  tantamount  to  resolving  a  question 
of  veracity  in  his  favor  and  against  the  regen- 
erators, his  affidavit  would  hardly  be  entitled  to 
serious  consideration.  But  this  affidavit  has  re- 
f  ceived  corroboration  from  many  sources.  One 
of  them  is  the  American  Magazine  of  April, 
1908,  wherein  Lincoln  Steffens  quotes  Burns  on 
the  occasion  of  Ruef's  arrest :  "You  can  see  that 
we  have  got  you  and  got  you  right.  And  you 
can  see  also  that  you  aren't  the  man  we're  after. 
The    fellow    we're    after    is    your    good    friend, 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      125 

the  man  higher  up."  In  addition  to  Ruef's 
affidavit  we  have  the  undisputed  fact  that 
Rudolph  Spreckels  told  Gallagher  that  Ruef  was 
privileged  to  exchange  his  testimony  for  com- 
plete immunity ;  also  the  undisputed  fact  that 
several  supervisors  conveyed  to  him  the  assur- 
ance of  complete  immunity  on  the  same  basis  on 
which  they  had  obtained  it ;  also  the  testimony 
of  tv/o  rabbis,  the  strange  and  significant  conduct 
of  Judge  Dunne  in  the  Schmitz  case,  the  repeated 
postponement  of  Ruef's  sentence,  and  finally  the 
written  contract  of  immunity  which  is  a  matter 
of  public  record.  This  contract  itself  seems  to 
argue  the  truth  of  what  Ruef  says  in  his  affidavit. 
It  sets  forth  that  its  terms  should  be  applicable 
to  all  indictments  save  No.  305,  the  one  to  which 
Ruef  agreed  to  plead  guilty,  the  one  which,  ac- 
cording to  his  affidavit,  was  the  subject  of  the 
verbal  agreement  ratified  at  the  midnight  meet- 
ing. So  it  appears  that  if  in  deference  to  the 
wishes  of  the  regenerators  we  accept  the  written 
immunity  contract  as  the  only  evidence  of  a  bar- 
gain, we  must  believe  that  Ruef  agreed  to  do 
what  the  regenerators  wanted  him  to  do  in  con- 
sideration of  their  promise  to  punish  him  for  only 
one  felony.  Is  it  reasonable  to  believe  that  Ruef 
would  agree  to  such  terms?  It  would  be  if  it 
were  the  practice  in  such  cases  to  prosecute  a  man 
for  more  than  one  crime.  Such  is  not  the  prac- 
tice. Justice  is  not  vindictive.  Justice  is  usually 
satisfied  with  one  verdict.     Even  in  the  case  of 


126  THE    REGENERATORS 

Abraham  Ruef  justice,  as  we  now  know,  would 
have  been  satisfied,  for  Ruef  having  been  con- 
victed of  one  crime  the  prosecution  of  him  is 
at  an  end.  Is  it  not,  then,  putting  a  tax  on 
creduHty  to  ask  us  to  beheve  that  Ruef  accepted 
immunity  on  all  but  one  charge  when  there  was 
not  the  slightest  likelihood  of  his  being  prosecuted 
on  more  than  one  charge? 

Whatever  else  may  be  said  of  Abraham  Ruef 
it  will  never  be  asserted  that  he  was  not  inclined 
to  drive  a  hard-and-fast  bargain.  Nor  will  it 
be  said  that  the  regenerators  regarded  him  as  of 
so  little  importance  as  a  witness  that  they  would 
not  be  likely  to  let  him  dictate  terms.  What  they 
thought  of  him  is  set  forth  on  pages  28  and  29  of 
the  printed  report  of  Mayor  Taylor's  whitewash 
committee.  "It  became  apparent,"  says  that  com- 
mittee with  reference  to  Ruef,  "that  without  this 
one  man's  testimony  the  many  bribe-givers  whose 
enrichment  by  the  large  profits  of  such  under- 
takings made  them  equally,  if  not  more,  danger- 
ous to  society,  would  not  only  escape  the  pen- 
alty which  was  their  due,  but  that  even  their 
names  would  not  be  discovered  and  written  in 
the  'detinue  book'  of  the  city's  suspicious  char- 
acters. Besides,  without  Ruef's  assistance,  the 
conviction  of  Schmitz,  with  the  resultant  change 
in  the  mayoralty,  the  police  and  other  municipal 
boards,  seemed  impossible."  So  Ruef  was 
deemed  a  very  important  personage  when  the 
immunity  contract  was  made,  so  important,  ac- 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      127 

cording  to  the  apologists  of  the  whitewash  com- 
mittee, that  they  would  not,  as  they  tell  us,  "have 
regarded  it  as  an  error  to  grant  Ruef  complete 
immunity."  But  they  do  not  believe  he  was 
promised  complete  immunity.  They  do  not  be- 
lieve that  it  had  been  privately  agreed  to  let  Ruef 
withdraw  his  plea  of  "guilty"  and  plead  "not 
guilty."  They  do  not  believe  it  because  "neither 
rabbi  protested  when  Ruef  led  the  jury  to  believe 
that  the  agreement  was  not  for  complete  im- 
munity." As  we  have  seen,  Judge  Dunne  would 
not  permit  Ruef  to  answer  the  question  as  to 
whether  he  had  been  promised  complete  im- 
munity, a  circumstance  in  itself  of  some  signif- 
icance. If  Ruef  had  not  been  granted  complete 
immunity  what  was  the  objection  to  his  say- 
ing so?  And  even  though  the  court  had  shown 
a  disposition  to  have  the  whole  truth  discovered 
is  it  likely  that  a  rabbi  or  any  other  person 
would  have  had  the  courage  to  stand  up  in 
court  and  interrupt  the  trial?  In  the  circum- 
stances the  silence  of  the  rabbis  is  hardly  to  be 
taken  as  conclusive  of  the  falsity  of  the  Ruef 
affidavit.  And  therefore  the  argument  of  the 
whitewash  committee  cannot  be  accepted  as  a 
refutation  of  Ruef's  statement. 

Circumstantial  evidence  is  very  much  in  Ruef's 
favor.  And  this  evidence  is  strengthened  by 
Dr.  Kaplan  who  corroborates  Ruef  on  many  im- 
portant points.  For  example  we  learn  from  Dr. 
Kaplan  that  Heney,  Langdon  and  Burns  before 


128  THE    REGENERATORS 

discovering  the  weakness  of  their  case  told  him 
they  were  satisfied  with  the  testimony  given  by 
Ruef  before  the  grand  jury  and  that  not  till  after 
the  first  Ford  trial  did  they  express  a  different 
view  of  the  matter.  In  the  midst  of  the  Ford 
trial  the  prosecution  decided  not  to  call  Ruef  as 
a  witness,  though  they  had  summoned  him  to 
court.  Heney's  failure  to  call  Ruef  is  explained 
by  Dr.  Kaplan :  "Mr.  Heney  told  me  he  had  his 
reasons  for  not  calling  Mr.  Ruef,  and  that  he 
would  put  him  on  in  the  Calhoun  case  which  was 
shortly  to  be  tried.  He  said,  in  substance,  Mr. 
Ruef  is  no  fool,  and  that  he  would  say  all  that 
was  expected  of  him  in  the  Calhoun  case.  At 
that  time  Mr.  Heney  said  that  Ruef  was  with- 
holding some  testimony,  and  asked  me  to  get 
Mr.  Ruef  to  furnish  the  testimony  referred  to." 

This  is  corroborative  of  Ruef  who  says  that 
Dr.  Kaplan  told  him  what  the  prosecution 
wanted.  "I  stated  to  Dr.  Kaplan  repeatedly," 
says  Ruef,  "that  to  do  what  was  requested  meant 
perjury  on  my  part." 

Dr.  Nieto,  according  to  Ruef,  also  had  inter- 
views with  the  prosecutors,  and  reported  to  the 
prisoner  that  they  had  said  to  him  he  must  give 
the  testimony  wanted  or  take  the  consequences." 
But  the  clergymen  were  always  assured  that  as 
the  testimony  wanted  was  the  truth,  they  should 
have  no  hesitancy  in  advising  Ruef  to  "come 
through." 

There  were  other  matters  besides  the  trolley 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      129 

franchise  about  wliicii  tlie  prosecutors  desired 
satisfactory  testimony.  In  the  most  important 
of  these  matters  Mr.  Theodore  Roosevelt  was 
personally  interested.  Says  Ruef :  "Among  the 
matters  so  requested  to  be  testified  to  and  urged 
upon  me  by  said  Burns  for  and  on  behalf  of  said 
prosecution  were  matters  which  related  to  Will- 
iam F.  Herrin  and  E.  H.  Harriman  of  the 
Southern  Pacific  Company,  and  especially  was  it 
desired  and  requested  that  I  should  testify  con- 
cerning these  last  named  persons  that  they  had 
entered  into  a  corrupt  bargain  and  agreement 
with  me  relative  to,  and  had  paid  money  to  me 
for  and  concerning,  the  nomination  of  James  N. 
Gillett  as  candidate  for  Governor  of  the  State 
of  California  by  the  Republican  State  Conven- 
tion which  was  held  in  Santa  Cruz  in  the  year 
1906.  And  they  claimed  that  said  Herrin,  Har- 
riman and  said  governor  had  committed  crimes 
against  the  laws  of  the  State  thereby,  for  which 
they  could  be  indicted,  and  it  was  stated  to  me 
by  said  Burns  that  the  said  prosecution  had  posi- 
tive information  and  knowledge  that  said  William 
F.  Herrin  had  paid  me  a  large  sum  of  money 
to  purchase  the  votes  of  delegates  representing 
San  Francisco  in  said  Republican  State  Conven- 
tion, and  wanted  me  so  to  testify,  and  stated  that 
the  prosecution  wanted  to  'get'  the  governor  and 
Herrin  and  Harriman." 

Ruef   says   he   denied   ever   having  been   paid 
money   for   any    such   purpose,    and   that    Burns 


130  THE    REGENERATORS 

then  told  him  that  Heney  and  Spreckels  were 
anxious  to  incriminate  Herrin  and  Harriman  and 
"that  Heney  had  the  support  of  President 
Theodore  Rooseveh   in  that  connection." 

Notwithstanding"  his  denial  Ruef  was  sum- 
moned before  the  grand  jury  and  questioned 
about  the  nomination  of  Governor  Gillett,  and 
he  swore  that  not  a  dollar  had  been  promised 
or  paid  to  him  by  Harriman  or  anyone  else  for 
the  purpose  of  influencing  the  vote  of  any 
delegate.  The  only  testimony  ever  adduced  any- 
where on  the  subject  of  this  alleged  bribery  of  del- 
egates to  the  convention  was  that  given  by  Ruef 
before  the  grand  jury,  and  though  he  disclaimed 
knowledge  of  the  use  of  money  by  anybody  in 
that  connection,  it  was  stated  in  the  final  report 
of  the  grand  jury  that  evidence  had  been  ob- 
tained of  the  bribery  of  the  convention  in  the 
interest  of  the  man  who  was  nominated  for 
governor.  Yet  no  indictments  were  filed,  and 
nobody  ever  heard  anything  more  of  the  mat- 
ter. The  supposition  is  that  the  report  was  pre- 
pared under  the  direction  of  Langdon  and 
Heney. 


In  the  month  of  January,  1908,  Ruef  learned 
that  his  immunity  contract  was  not  worth  the 
paper  it  was  written  on.  It  was  canceled,  the 
verbal  agreements  were  repudiated.  On  no 
single  hypothesis  are  we  to  account  for  the  be- 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      131 

haviour  of  the  prosecutors  in  this  matter.  They 
were  not  all  of  one  mind.  As  late  as  January 
13  District  Attorney  Langdon  stood  ready  to 
carry  out  his  agreement.  He  told  Ruef  that 
while  he  was  not  satisfied  with  his  testimony 
on  the  subject  of  the  trolley  franchise  neverthe- 
less he  had  decided  to  accept  what  had  been 
given.  Dr.  Kaplan  tells  us  that  as  late  as  the 
eighteenth  of  January  he  had  a  number  of  inter- 
views with  Langdon  and  Burns,  during  all  of 
which  they  assured  him  the  contract  would  be 
kept.  Furthermore  they  told  him  they  were 
"working  with  Judge  Dunne  and  Judge  Lawlor 
to  induce  them  to  comply  with  the  terms  of  the 
agreement."  Also  they  told  him  that  "Rudolph 
Spreckels  would  see  Judge  Dunne  in  order  to 
induce  him  to  live  up  to  the  terms  of  the  agree- 
ment, and  that  Mr.  Fremont  Older,  editor  of 
the  Bulletin,  was  in  consultation  with  Judge 
Dunne  with  the  view  of  inducing  him  to  carry 
out  his  agreement."  Apparently  Judge  Dunne 
and  Judge  Lawlor  were  the  recalcitrants.  As  it 
was  still  possible  to  shock  public  opinion  by  set- 
ting Ruef  free,  the  judges  were  timid.  '  Besides 
the  silent  changes  of  time  had  operated  on  the 
relations  between  the  regenerators  and  the  peo- 
ple. For  more  than  a  year  the  Graft  Prosecu- 
tion had  been  dragging  its  slow  length  along, 
and  nothing  had  been  accomplished.  What  was 
worse,  the  regenerators  were  no  longer  regarded 
as  too  seraphic  for  human  criticism.     The  sus- 


132  THE    REGENERATORS 

picion  that  they  were  not  as  scrupulous  as  they 
ought  to  be  was  striking  deep  into  the  public 
conscience.  So  much  was  known  of  what  had 
been  done  in  secret ;  so  many  glimpses  had  been 
had  of  dissimulation  and  chicane,  that  the  situa- 
tion was  far  from  propitious  for  the  consum- 
mation most  passionately  hoped  for  by  Abraham 
Ruef.  No  wonder  that  the  judges  who  had 
sanctified    the    "midnight    deal"    were    obdurate. 

For  nearly  a  week  Ruef  was  on  tenter-hooks. 
Twice  he  was  brought  to  court  with  the  under- 
standing that  the  motion  to  dismiss  would  be 
made.  Each  time  he  suffered  bitter  disappoint- 
ment. The  judges,  he  was  told,  had  not  been 
persuaded.  Meanwhile,  as  Ruef  says.  Detective 
Burns  was  trying  to  induce  him  to  commit  per- 
jury in  an  affidavit  for  the  benefit  of  Editor 
Older  who  was  being  prosecuted  for  libel  by 
William  Tevis.  One  day  Burns  said  to  Dr. 
Kaplan.  "We  expect  Ruef  to  do  something  for 
()lder  in  consideration  of  what  Older  is  doing 
for  him."  The  affidavit  which  they  wished  him 
to  sign  reflected  discredit  on  Tevis.  They  ex- 
pected Ruef  to  swear  that  Tevis  had  hired  him 
to  sell  a  water  plant  to  the  city.  Ruef  refused 
to  sign,  and  Burns  vituperated  him  for  his  in- 
gratitude to  Older. 

On  the  evening  of  January  18  District  Attor- 
ney Langdon  called  on  Ruef  and  told  him  the 
judges  refused  to  stand  by  the  agreement.  In 
that   interview   Langdon   said:   "I   would   regret 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      133 

this  more  if  we  were  all  satisfied  that  you  have 
not  been  withholding-  some  of  the  truth.  We 
have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  you  must  be 
flirting  with  the  other  side." 

When  the  immunity  contract  and  the  repudia- 
tion of  it  became  the  subject  of  public  discussion 
the  regenerators  denied  that  they  had  ever  prom- 
ised Ruef  complete  immunity.  Affidavits  of 
great  bulk  were  made  by  Heney  and  Burns  in 
which  they  gave  their  version  of  the  immunity 
bargain.  To  believe  them  is  to  believe  that  the 
clergymen  wandered  far  froni  the  truth,  but  only 
in  matters  of  collateral  interest.  The  attorney 
and  detective  enveloped  the  issue  in  a  cloud  of 
words.  They  dwelt  chiefly  on  Ruef's  trickery 
and  their  own  shrewdness.  Clearly  their  main 
purpose  was  to  convince  the  public  that  negotia- 
tions were  opened  by  Ruef  and  that  they  never 
had  any  confidence  in  him.  They  always  feared 
that  he  intended  to  trick  them,  and  they  asserted 
that  he  had  not  been  honest  in  his  dealings  with 
them.  Nevertheless  the  "midnight  meeting"  was 
held.  Heney  said  it  was  held  merely  to  have  the 
judges  explain  their  usual  policy  in  regard  to 
dismissing  cases  against  defendants  who  had 
"turned  State's  evidence"  and  as  to  their  con- 
fidence in  the  affiant  and  Langdon.  But  why 
Ruef  should  want  the  judges  to  explain  some- 
thing with  which  he  was  as  familiar  as  they 
were  themselves  does  not  appear.  Burns  ad- 
mitted in  his  affidavit  that  he  authorized  Wilson 


134  THE    REGENERATORS 

and  Gallagher  to  call  on  Ruef  and  tell  him  that 
"he  could  have  the  same  opportunity  of  coming 
through  which  had  been  given  them."  But,  ac- 
cording to  Burns,  he  acted  without  Heney's  au- 
thority. Heney  would  never  agree  to  anything 
but  that  Ruef  should  be  promised  leniency  in 
the  French  restaurant  case.  So  after  all  there 
is  but  a  slight  difference  between  Ruef's  version 
and  the  version  of  the  prosecution.  For  the 
prosecutors  admit  that  all  cases  save  the  French 
restaurant  cases  were  to  be  dismissed  and  that 
even  as  to  that  case  Ruef  was  to  be  vouchsafed 
"leniency." 

When  it  was  pointed  out  that  Ruef  was  mor- 
ally entitled  to  immunity  under  the  written  con- 
tract, the  Supreme  Court  having  decided  that 
the  indictment  in  the  French  restaurant  case. to 
which  he  pleaded  guilty  and  with  reference 
to  which  the  verbal  agreement  had  been  made, 
was  invalid,  they  said  that  it  was  the  under- 
standing that  he  would  sufifer  imprisonment  on 
one  charge.  Of  course  the  regenerators  tried 
to  exculpate  the  judges,  but  circumstances  seem 
to  justify  the  conclusion  that  the  judges  were 
alone  responsible  for  the  cancellation  of  the  con- 
tract. District  Attorney  Langdon  gave  color  to 
this  theory  when  he  issued  a  statement  for  pub- 
lication to  the  effect  that  he  had  kept  all  the 
terms  of  the  contract.  He  did  not  say  that  Ruef 
had  violated  the  contract.  So  the  inference  was 
that  the  third  party  to  the  contract — the  court — 


RUEF    PLEADS    GUILTY    AND    WHY      135 

had  made  it  impossible  to  carry  out  its  provisions. 
Let  the  truth  be  what  it  may  there  was  no  more 
talk  of  immunity  for  Ruef.  He  had  to  go  to 
trial. 


VII 

THE    SCHMITZ    CASE 

A    Trial  in    Which  the  Law   Was  Adapted   to   the 
Purposes  of  the  Regenerators  Without  Regard 
to  Elemental  Principles  or  the  Constitu- 
tional Rights   of   the  Defendant 

A  study  of  the  Graft  Prosecution  would  be  in- 
complete without  a  review  of  the  Schmitz  case ; 
nay,  no  history  of  American  jurisprudence  will 
ever  be  complete  which  does  not  contain  the 
story  of  this  case — the  story  of  the  trial  with  its 
exhibition  of  the  complete  and  abject  surrender 
of  a  criminal  court  by  its  judge  into  the  hands 
of  "special  prosecutors" ;  the  story  of  the  appeal 
where  every  weapon  of  vilification,  defamation, 
and  incitement  to  lynch  law,  was  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  appellate  courts  in  the  effort  to 
break  them  down  and  make  them  as  pliant  and 
subservient  to  the  will  of  the  Graft  Prosecution 
as  the  trial  court  had  proved  itself  to  be. 

The  story  then  has  two  chapters.  That  to 
which  we  first  come  presents  a  humiliating,  un- 
relieved picture  of  the  swift  and  utter  degrada- 
tion to  which  a  court  of  record  can  reduce  it- 
self by  willing  subservience  to  any  man  or  set 
of  men. 

Schmitz  and  Ruef,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been 


THE    SCHMITZ    CASH  137 

indicted  jointly  for  extorting  money  from  the 
French  restaurateurs  of  San  Francisco.  The  in- 
dictments were  the  first  ones  found.  They  were 
handed  out  as  a  pabulum  to  a  hungry  public 
which  was  growing  tired  waiting  for  something 
to  happen.  Ruef  had  never  denied,  indeed  he 
had  for  years  openly  admitted,  that  he  had 
been  employed  to  represent  certain  restaurateurs 
as  attorney  at  law  in  securing  their  retail  liquor 
licenses.  The  flimsiness  of  the  evidence  upon 
which  these  indictments  were  brought  is  amaz- 
ing in  the  light  of  after  events.  It  was  charged 
that  the  two  men  conspired  to  extort  money. 
Ruef's  evidence  at  the  time  the  indictments  were 
brought  was  not  open  or  known  to  the  prose- 
cution. Without  that  evidence  there  is  not  the 
shadow  of  testimony  showing  Schmitz  guilty  of 
any  offense,  and  even  with  Ruef's  evidence  the 
proof,  as  will  appear,  must  be  regarded  as 
wholly  unsatisfactory. 

Ruef,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  put  upon 
trial  under  this  joint  indictment,  and  having 
secretly  arranged  with  the  prosecution  for  im- 
munity, pleaded  guilty,  coupling  his  plea  with 
the  astounding  statement  that  he  pleaded  guilty 
though  innocent. 

The  indictments  against  Schmitz  were  allowed 
to  slumber  until  the  exigencies  of  Graft  Prose- 
cution politics  demanded  Schmitz's  elimination 
from  the  mayoralty.  As  mayor  he  still  con- 
trolled a  most  important  municipal  office  and  its 


138  THE    REGENERATORS 

patronage.  He  had  agreed  to  resign,  leaving 
the  nomination  of  his  successor  to  a  committee  of 
the  recognized  civic  bodies  of  San  Francisco, 
but  when  that  committee,  headed  by  Judge 
Charles  Slack,  submitted  this  proposition  to 
Rudolph  Spreckels,  the  members  were  driven 
from  his  sanctuary  with  scorn  and  contumely, 
denounced  as  emissaries  of  the  infamous  South- 
ern Pacific,  and  informed  that  Mr.  Spreckels 
would  name  his  own  mayor.  Mayor  Schmitz 
must,  therefore,  be  excised.  Under  the  law  of 
California  the  mere  conviction  of  a  criminal  of- 
fense— regardless  of  the  fact  whether  or  not  the 
conviction  be  upheld  on  appeal — works  a  for- 
feiture of  office.  Aware  of  this  the  way  of  the 
prosecution  was  plain,  and  by  a  considerate 
judge  could  be  made  easy.  All  that  was  neces- 
sary was  to  convict  Schmitz,  and  to  this  end, 
and  not  to  determine  his  guilt  or  innocence,  the 
trial  was  begun.  The  conclusion  was  foregone 
before  a  word  of  evidence  was  taken ;  indeed, 
before  the  jury  was  impaneled.  During  the 
slow  process  of  jury  getting  an  astute  member 
of  the  pugilistic  fraternity  leaned  over  and 
whispered  to  a  companion — "Let's  get  out  of 
here.  Dis  aint  on  the  level.  Dey  aint  going  to 
give  Schmitz  a  dead  man's  chance."  Nor  did 
they.  Incredible  as  it  may  read,  the  matter  and 
the  fact  are  simply  these :  whatever  the  prose- 
cution desired  it  obtained,  regardless  of  the  pro- 
tests and  objections  of  the  defense;  of  what  the 


THE   SCHMITZ    CASE  139 

defense  desired,  it  obtained  nothing  if  there  was 
the  sHghtest  objection  by  the  prosecution.  It 
is  nevertheless  conceivable,  you  may  say,  that 
the  prosecution  was  always  right  and  the  defense 
always  wrong.  The  answer  to  this  may  well 
be  left  to  the  Court  of  Appeals  which  was  later 
called  upon  to  review  these  performances,  (for 
they  can  scarcely  be  called  rulings)  which  will  be 
dwelt  upon  presently.  For  the  present  it  is 
enough  to  say  that  the  judicial  ermine  was  as 
spotless  after  that  trial  as  before.  It  was  all 
black.  When  the  foreordained  verdict  was  an- 
nounced nobody  was  surprised,  and  but  a  few 
were  shocked.  Not  that  every  lawyer  and  most 
laymen  did  not  know  that  the  trial  had  been 
either  a  judicial  farce  or  a  judicial  tragedy, 
depending  on  one's  point  of  view.  But  at  that 
time  everything  was  given  for  nothing  and 
taken  for  granted  so  far  as  the  prosecution  was 
concerned.  It  was  recognized  that  the  elimina- 
tion of  Schmitz  was  a  matter  of  expediency. 
The  manner  of  his  elimination  was  of  no  con- 
sequence, since  the  end  must  justify  the  means. 
As  to  what  might  occur  on  appeal,  nobody 
cared.  The  conviction  was  the  thing  and  it  had 
done  its  work.  Schmitz  by  force  of  it  went  out 
of  office.  That  this  is  an  unvarnished  recital  of 
the  facts  the  records  will  show.  Let  us  glance 
at  them.  The  charge  was  that  defendants 
Schmitz  and  Ruef  feloniously  "threatened  the 
said  Joseph  Malfanti,  Charles  Kelb,  and  William 


140  THE    REGENERATORS 

Lafrenz,  that  unless  they  should  then  and  there 
pay  to  them  the  said  sum  of  money  hereinbe- 
fore referred  to,  and  promise  and  agree  to  pay 
one  year  thereafter  a  further  sum  of  one  thou- 
sand dollars  the  said  Malfanti,  Kelb  and  Lafrenz 
could  not  and  would  not  obtain  said  license  for 
the  sale  of  said  liquors  and  wines  from  the  said 
City  and  County  of  San  Francisco,  and  the  said 
Schmitz  and  Ruef  would  prevent  the  said  Mal- 
fanti, Kelb  and  Lafrenz  from  carrying  on  or 
conducting  the  said  business  of  selling  said  wines 
and  liquors."  Here  there  is  a  charge  of  extor- 
tion by  threat,  the  particular  threat  being  ex- 
plicitly set  forth. 

Early  in  the  trial  and  previous  to  the  taking 
of  evidence  the  judge  had  removed  any  possi- 
ble doubt  as  to  his  attitude.  A  juror  by  the 
name  of  Harris  after  having  been  accepted  by 
prosecution  and  defense  and  sworn  to  try  the 
case,  was  afterwards  successfully  challenged  with- 
out cause  by  the  district  attorney.  The  code  of 
California,  like  the  law  of  New  York  from  which 
it  is  drawn,  permits  a  challenge  to  a  sworn 
juror  to  be  made  only  when  good  cause  to  ex- 
cuse the  delay  is  shown.  Says  the  Court  of  Ap- 
peal of  New  York  (People  v.  Hughes,  137 
N.  Y.  29)  :  "The  obvious  meaning  of  the  sec- 
tion is  that  a  challenge  for  good  cause,  which 
is  required  to  be  taken  before  the  juror  is  sworn, 
may  nevertheless  be  taken  thereafter  and  before 
evidence  is  given,  in  the  discretion  of  the  court. 


THE    SCHMITZ    CASE  141 

If  it  does  not  mean  that  it  must  necessarily 
mean  that  the  court  may  for  any  good  reason, 
even  though  undisclosed,  set  aside  a  sworn 
juror  in  its  discretion.  I  do  not  think  that  is  its 
meaning  or  its  purpose."  The  California  deci- 
sions are  to  the  same  purport.  Yet  the  judge 
witJiout  oiiy  cause  shozvn  or  reason  assigned, 
permitted  the  prosecution  to  interpose  a  chal- 
lenge and  excuse  Harris. 

Another  juror,  Bray,  had  likewise  been  sworn. 
His  examination  was  reopened.  A  newspaper 
had  asserted  that  his  wife  was  a  fourth  or  fifth 
cousin  of  Schmitz's  wife.  Interrogated,  the 
juror  replied  that  he  knew  nothing  of  it  and  had 
heard  nothing  of  it.  Nobody  else  knew  any- 
thing or  proved  anything.  A  challenge  by  the 
prosecution  to  the  juror  on  the  ground  that  he 
was  related  to  the  defendant  by  consanguinity 
or  affinity  within  the  prohibited  fourth  degree, 
was  allowed  by  the  judge  with  the  solemn  state- 
ment, 'T  think  any  relationship,  no  matter  how 
remote,  ought  to  keep  a  person  off  the  jury." 
Says  the  Court  of  Appeals :  "The  evidence  did  not 
show  any  relationship  of  the  juror  to  the  de- 
fendant to  any  degree  or  in  any  way." 

Upon  ex  parte  affidavits  from  the  prosecuting 
attorneys  the  court  found  the  sheriff  and  coroner 
disqualified,  and  appointed  Biggy  an  elisor  to 
take  charge  of  the  jury.  It  refused  permission 
to  the  defense  to  read  and  rebut  the  affidavits ; 
refused  permission  to  file  affidavits  showing  the 


142  THE    REGENERATORS 

disqualification  of  Biggy  and  his  bias  and  hos- 
tility to  defendant.  It  found  the  sheriff  and 
coroner  disqualified  on  the  ex  parte  statements 
of  the  prosecution,  but  refused  a  man  whose 
liberty  was  at  stake  the  right  to  show  that  his 
jury  was  to  be  put  in  the  hands  of  his  personal 
enemy.  How  exact  an  echo  of  the  prosecution 
the  judge  made  himself  may  be  shown  by  two 
excerpts  from  the  record:  "The  prosecuting  at- 
torney (speaking  of  the  appointment  of  an  elisor 
to  counsel  for  defendant)  :  That  is  a  matter  over 
which  neither  of  us  have  any  control.  It  is 
nothing  with  which  we  are  concerned. 

"The  court  (to  defendant's  counsel,  Mr. 
John  J.  Barrett)  :  It  is  no  concern  of  yours, 
Mr.  Barrett;  you  have  nothing  to  do  with  it." 

Says  the  Court  of  Appeals,  after  showing  what 
is  all-apparent,  that  this  was  a  most  unwar- 
ranted deprivation  of  a  defendant's  right  to  be 
heard  in  the  matter:  "Fair  dealing  and  the 
rights  of  the  defendant  required  that  he  should 
be  heard  on  both  propositions."  The  remark  of 
my  pugilistic  neighbor  thus  seems  fully  jus- 
tified. 

But  coming  to  the  evidence  and  taking  it  in 
the  light  most  unfavorable  to  Schmitz,  it  showed 
that  the  approval  of  the  police  commissioners 
was  necessary  before  the  restaurateurs  could 
secure  their  liquor  licenses ;  that  their  licenses 
were  refused  to  the  impairment  of  their  busi- 
ness of  conducting  assignation  houses :  that  they 


THE    SCHiMITZ    CASE  143 

were  advised  by  their  attorney  that  they  could 
secure  their  Hcenses  only  by  employing  Ruef  to 
represent  them ;  that  Ruef  agreed  to  represent 
them  as  their  attorney  in  the  matter  of  the 
licenses  and  also  in  any  matter  of  litigation  that 
might  arise  in  connection  with  their  l)usiness,  for 
two  years  at  an  annual  salary  or  retainer  of 
$5000;  that  they  agreed  to  this  and  paid  the 
money ;  that  neither  Schmitz  nor  Ruef  threat- 
ened them  in  any  way ;  that  Ruef  promised 
merely  to  do  what  he  could  for  them,  and  that 
to  one  of  them  Schmitz  had  said  that  he  favored 
the  issuance  of  their  licenses,  and  would  look 
into  the  matter  of  the  delay  and  see  what  could 
be  done  to  remedy  it. 

Reagan,  an  ex-police  commissioner,  appointed 
and  dismissed  by  Schmitz,  testified  that  the 
mayor  had  told  him  that  the  French  restaurants 
were  evil  places  and  licenses  should  be  denied 
them.  He  had  never  visited,  had  never  heard 
of  the  restaurants.  He  visited  and  inspected  one 
and  found  nothing  objectionable  and  voted  for 
its  license.  Subsequently  complaint  was  made  of 
another  (the  complaint  growing  out  of  the  refusal 
of  the  proprietor  to  unionize  his  waiters)  and  evi- 
dence was  brought  before  the  commissioners  that 
lewd  women  frequented  the  place.  Reagan  then 
voted  to  refuse  it  a  license.  The  mayor  told  him 
they  were  all  alike  and  that  none  should  be  granted 
licenses.  Thereafter,  Reagan  admitted,  he  was 
resolved  to  favor  the  licensing  of  only  such  res- 


144  THE    REGENERATORS 

taurants  as  would  comply  with  the  regulations  of 
the  board  and  do  away  with  bedrooms,  and  he 
would  at  any  time  have  voted  licenses  for  any 
that  would  comply  with  these  regulations.  After- 
ward, while  he  was  voting  against  the  licenses 
and  they  were  being  withheld,  the  mayor  told 
him  that  great  pressure  was  being  brought  to 
bear  on  him  by  business  men  and  politicians 
to  grant  the  licenses ;  that  the  pressure  was  so 
great  that  he  feared  it  would  injure  him  politic- 
ally if  the  refusal  were  continued,  and  asked 
Reagan  if  he  could  not  change  his  vote.  Reagan 
said  he  could  not,  and  the  mayor  said  he  could 
not  ask  him  to  stultify  himself  but  would  remove 
Hutton  who  was  with  Reagan  in  opposition. 
Hutton  was  removed.  Ruef  appeared  before 
the  board,  and  suggested  new  regulations  under 
which  licenses  could  properly  be  issued.  These 
regulations  were  adopted,  and  licenses  were 
issued,  but  Reagan  still  voted  against  them. 
There  was  here  no  evidence  that  Schmitz  or 
Ruef  or  Reagan  threatened  any  of  the  restau- 
rateurs. But  it  was  argued  by  the  prosecu- 
tion that  the  threat  charged  to  have  been  ut- 
tered was  embraced  in  and  conveyed  by  the  act 
of  Reagan  in  voting  against  the  licenses.  Yet 
the  truth  is  that  Reagan  voted  against  the  licenses 
to  the  end  and  that  he  testified  he  would  have 
voted  for  them  if  the  proprietors  had  been  will- 
ing to  give  up  their  assignation-house  business. 
With  this  testimony  the  prosecution  rested  its 


THE    SCHMITZ    CASE  145 

case.  There  was  no  word  of  evidence  pointing 
to  a  threat,  to  a  conspiracy  or  to  a  sharing  by 
Schmitz  of  the  fee  Riief  received.  Whatever 
Ruef's  testimony  would  be  the  prosecution  knew, 
yet  he  was  not  called  to  the  witness  stand. 

When  the  prosecution  rested  Schmitz  was 
sworn.  His  testimony  was  confined  absolutely 
to  denials  of  certain  statements  attributed  to  him 
by  Reagan.  In  effect  he  said  he  had  not  changed 
front  on  the  license  question  ;  that  he  had  alvvays 
advocated  with  Reagan  the  issuance  of  licenses 
except  to  proved  immoral  places.  This  was  all 
his  testimony. 

By  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  State  of 
California,  as  of  every  State,  I  believe,  no  de- 
fendant can  be  compelled  to  furnish  evidence 
against  himself;  and  if  he  ofifers  himself  as  a 
witness  he  may  be  cross-examined  only  as  to 
those  matters  about  which  he  was  examined  in 
chief.  Yet  when  Schmitz  was  turned  over  to  the 
prosecution  for  cross-examination  the  question  he 
was  made  to  answer,  over  the  objection  of  his 
counsel,  was :  "Did  Ruef  pay  you  any  part  of  the 
$5000  that  has  been  testified  he  received  from 
the  French  restaurants  ?"  Schmitz's  whole  cross- 
examination  was  made  up  of  like  interrogatories. 
It  needs  no  lawyer  to  perceive  that  this  cross- 
examination  was  not  upon  the  matters  about 
which  Schmitz  was  examined  in  chief.  It  needs 
no  lawyer  to  perceive  that  it  was  an  examina- 
tion upon  outside  matters  designed  to  force  evi- 


146  THE    REGENERATORS 

dence  or  denials  from  a  defendant  in  open  and 
obvious  violation  of  his  constitutional  rights,  an 
examination  countenanced  and  upheld  by  the 
judge  in  brazen  defiance  of  the  Supreme  Court 
which  long  before  had  declared  :  "A  defendant  ac- 
cused of  crime  in  this  State  has  a  constitutional 
right  to  be  protected  from  forced  examination. 
As  to  any  matters  concerning  which  he  has  not 
voluntarily  testified  in  his  own  behalf,  )io  evi- 
dence can  be  zvrung  from  him."  (People  v.  Ar- 
righini,  122  Cal.  126.) 

Yet  is  this  tale  of  the  prostitution  of  justice 
but  half  told?  Schmitz  denied  the  receipt  of 
any  money  from  Ruef,  and  under  the  pretense  of 
rebutting  this  evidence  so  wrung  from  Schmitz 
by  illegal  cross-examination,  Ruef  was  called 
and  was  permitted  to  testify  that  after  receiv- 
ing his  fee  he  offered  half  to  Schmitz,  who  ac- 
cepted it.  And  then  Ruef  was  turned  over  to 
the  defense  for  cross-examination.  Bear  in 
mind  that  it  was  suspected  then,  though  pub- 
licly denied  by  the  prosecution,  and  not  known 
till  months  after,  that  Ruef  had  been  promised 
complete  immunity  by  the  prosecution  and  was 
testifying  under  that  promise ;  bear  in  mind  that 
evidence  of  the  existence  of  such  a  promise  of 
complete  or  partial  immunity  is  always  permis- 
sible to  show  the  strong  motives  that  may  actu- 
ate a  witness  to  color  his  testimony ;  bear  in 
mind  that  Ruef  was  a  co-defendant  with  Schmitz 
and  had  dramatically  pleaded  "guilty  though  in- 


FRANK    H.    DUNNE 


The    "midnight    meeting"    judge    who    presided    at    the 
Schmitz   trial. 


THE    SCHMITZ    CASE  147 

nocent,"  to  the  same  charge ;  bear  in  mind  also 
that  judge,  as  well  as  prosecutors,  knew  all  these 
things,  and  that  the  judge  was  a  party  to  the 
secret  "midnight  conclave,"  at  which  the  word  of 
all,  judges  and  prosecutors,  was  given  to  the 
rabbis  that  Ruef  should  receive  absolute  im- 
munity ;  bear  in  mind,  moreover,  that  the  rules 
of  evidence  have  always  sanctioned  the  utmost 
liberality  in  the  cross-examination  of  a  co-con- 
spirator, and  that  in  this  connection  the  Supreme 
Court  had  said :  "The  utmost  latitude  of  cross- 
examination  justified  by  the  law  in  any  case 
should  be  extended  to  the  testimony  of  such  a 
witness,"  (People  v.  Williams,  18  Cal.  191)  ;  and 
finally  bear  in  mind  the  illegal  latitude  allowed 
in  the  cross-examination  of  Schmitz,  and  then 
follow  the  record  of  Ruef's  cross-examination. 
Ruef  stated  that  he  had  told  the  prosecution  all 
the  facts  and  that  the  larger  part  of  them  were 
favorable  to  Schmitz.  This  is  the  record  of  in- 
terrogations : 

"Q.     State  those  facts  now  in  detail." 

"Q.  Did  you  in  your  conversations  with 
these  gentlemen  (of  the  prosecution)  tell  them 
that  you  would  not  stand  for  anything  except 
complete  immunity  ?" 

"Q.  In  pleading  guilty  to  this  charge,  you 
stated  at  the  same  time  that  you  were  not  guilty. 
Was  that  true?" 

"O.  What  do  you  mean,  Mr.  Ruef,  by  that 
statement  that  you  were  not  guilty  of  this 
charare  ?" 


148  THE    REGENERATORS 

"Q.  Did  you  change  your  plea  to  guilty  after 
you  had  your  conversation  with  Mr.  Burns  in 
which  he  told  you  he  would  do  all  he  could  to 
secure  leniency  for  you?" 

"Q.  Did  you  prior  to  the  time  you  say  you 
gave  defendant  one-half  your  fee,  have  any  con- 
versation with  him  in  relation  to  any  division,  or 
giving  him  any  part  of  any  fee  which  you  re- 
ceived from  the   French  restaurant  keepers?" 

"Q.  Did  you  go  to  the  French  restaurant 
keepers,  or  did  they  come  to  you?" 

"Q.  Did  you  tell  defendant  in  any  conversa- 
tion that  you  had  ever  threatened  any  restaurant 
keeper  that  if  they  did  not  pay  you  money  their 
licenses  would  be  held  up?" 

"Q.  Now  I  will  ask  you  this,  Mr.  Ruef,  if 
you  are  not  now  giving  your  testimony  under 
the  expectation  of  immunity — complete  im- 
munity ?" 

The  answers  to  these  and  dozens  more  of 
equally  pertinent  inquiries  were  one  and  all  shut 
out  by  the  court  (and  mark  the  ruling)  as  "not 
being  proper  cross-examination."  And  to  what 
end?  Plainly  the  purpose  was  twofold:  first,  to 
prevent  disclosures  of  the  bargain  which  had 
been  entered  into  between  Ruef,  the  prosecutors 
and  the  judge,  which  bargain  would  injure  them 
and  reduce  the  weight  of  Ruef's  evidence ;  and, 
second,  to  exclude  from  the  case  any  word  of 
evidence  which  might  help  the  defendant.  Jef- 
fries was  doubtless  an  abler  judge,  but  his  meth- 
ods were  not  superior  in  blunt  directness. 


THE    SCHMITZ    CASE  149 

Such  then  was  the  trial.  Its  naked  shameless- 
ness  is  here  but  half  revealed.  The  case  will  be 
found  reported  in  7  Cal.  App.  R.,  page  330, 
where  the  court  comments  on  the  matters  here 
set  forth.  Expressed  though  these  comments  are 
in  language  characteristic  of  the  philosophic  calm 
peculiar  to  the  Bench,  the  arraignment  of  the  trial 
judge  has  a  sting  that  the  average  indignant  lay- 
man might  strive  in  vain  to  inflict.  It  is  well  to 
emphasize  this  citation  and  again  to  direct  the 
reader  to  People  v.  Schmitz,  7  Cal.  App.  R.  330, 
for  none  of  the  comments  will  be  found  in 
the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court.  In  the 
petition  for  hearing  before  that  court,  the  prose- 
cution dropped  even  the  pretense  of  defending 
its  own  conduct  or  that  of  its  judge;  it  voiced  no 
protest  against  the  rulings  and  denunciation  of 
the  Court  of  Appeal  upon  any  of  these  matters ; 
by  its  silent  acquiescence  it  admitted  the  truth  of 
the  charge  almost  openly  made  by  the  Court 
of  Appeal,  that  with  the  aid  of  a  subservient 
judge  the  prosecutors  had  at  every  point  want- 
only denied  a  defendant  at  the  bar  of  a  criminal 
court  in  the  State  of  California  every  right  to  a 
fair  and  impartial  trial  guaranteed  him  by  the 
Constitution  and  statutes  of  the  commonwealth. 

Again  it  is  important  that  these  matters  should 
be  understood,  for  they  go  far  to  explain  why 
in  the  campaign  of  abuse  soon  to  follow  both 
higher  courts  were  deluged  with  vituperation  by 
the    Graft    Prosecution    press,    while    the    trial 


X 


150  THE    REGENERATORS 

judge  was  posed,  limned  and  painted  as  an  up- 
right and  able  jurist,  struggling  heroically  within 
the  law  to  uphold  the  people's  rights. 


Thus  was  Schmitz  convicted  and  put  out  of 
office.  He  took  his  appeal.  While  it  was  pend- 
ing Ruef  continued  to  live  in  charge  of  the 
prosecution's  elisor  and  eight  guards  at  the 
city's  expense.  Week  by  week,  month  by  month, 
as  has  already  appeared,  he  was  brought  to  the 
court  before  whose  bar  he  had  pleaded  guilty,  and 
on  each  occasion,  without  reason  shown  or  sug- 
gested, his  sentence  was  postponed.  Daily,  with 
ever  increasing  vociferation,  the  graft  prosecutors 
declared  that  they  had  not  promised  Ruef  im- 
munity, but  they  vouchsafed  no  other  informa- 
tion to  the  restive  public,  and  as  yet  nothing  was 
known  of  the  immunity  bargain. 

Such  was  the  situation  when  in  January,  1908, 
the  District  Court  of  Appeal  rendered  its  decision 
reversing  the  judgment  in  the  Schmitz  case.  It 
was  received  with  perfect  equanimity  by  the 
public  because  the  public  knew  that  a  reversal 
was  inevitable.  Much  more  singular  is  the 
fact  that  it  was  received  with  equal  complaisance 
by  the  graft  prosecutors  and  their  press,  the  dis- 
trict attorney  expressing  doubt  as  to  whether  an 
application  would  ever  be  made  to  the  Supreme 
Court  for  a  reconsideration.  Then  shortly  after 
the  storm  broke.     The  Bulletin  invited  the  mob 


THE    SCHMITZ    CASE  151 

to  lynch  the  three  judges  of  the  Court  of  Ap- 
peal, and  daily  published  their  pictures  and 
residence  addresses,  as  an  aid  to  the  incitement ; 
and  the  Supreme  Court  was  threatened  with  like 
appalling  calamities  if  it  did  not  yield  to  the 
demand  of  the  ])rosecution  and  reverse  the  Court 
of  Appeal.  All  this  was  puzzling  and  myste- 
rious at  the  time.  Not  the  abuse  of  the  higher 
courts ;  it  was  well  understood  that  this  abuse 
was  designed  to  bend  them  by  terror  and  coercion 
to  the  prosecutors'  will.  But  why  the  sud- 
den change  of  front?  Why  first  acquiescence 
and  then  denunciation?  If  the  prosecution  were 
"stung,"  why  so  long  before  the  yelp  of  pain? 
An  explanation  is  necessary,  and  the  explana- 
tion necessitates  reversion  to  the  situation  that 
preceded  the  breaking  of  the  immunity  contract. 
That  situation  was  one  of  extreme  embarrassment 
to  the  regenerators.  They  did  not  dare  carry  out 
their  contract  with  Ruef.  Public  sentiment,  con- 
trary to  their  expectations,  had  not  softened  to- 
ward their  impatient  penitent.  Thumbs  were 
down,  mercy  was  not  in  the  public  eye.  So  Judge 
Dunne  went  on  postponing  Ruef's  sentence.  He 
postponed  it  so  often  that  the  Legislature  has 
since  deemed  it  advisable  to  prevent  a  recur- 
rence of  this  particular  kind  of  procrastination. 
The  delaying  of  the  sentence  only  postponed  the 
evil  day.  Some  time  something  would  have  to  be 
done,  and  already  the  papers  were  demanding 
the  reason   for  the   contin'iances.     Ruef,  more- 


152  THE    REGENERATORS 

over,  was  growing  importunate  and  was  insist- 
ing that  all  indictments  against  him  should  be 
dismissed  and  that  he  should  be  discharged  with- 
out sentence  from  his  plea  of  guilty. 

To  the  troubled  prosecutors  the  decision  of 
the  Court  of  Appeal  afforded  a  happy  escape. 
That  decision  declared  that  the  Schmitz  indict- 
ment was  radically  defective  and  charged  no 
crime.  It  being  the  identical  indictment  to 
which  Ruef  had  pleaded  guilty,  it  necessarily 
followed  that  it  charged  no  crime  against  him. 
All  then  that  the  regenerators  had  to  do  to  rid 
themselves  of  their  difficulties  was  to  bow  to  the 
decision  of  the  Court  of  Appeal,  which  meant 
that  they  would  be  freed  from  the  embarrass- 
ment of  the  Ruef  plea  of  guilty.  There  could  be 
no  judgment  pronounced  in  that  case.  This 
most  perplexing  trouble  being  thus  eliminated,  it 
remained  only  to  have  the  trial  judges  dismiss 
the  other  indictments. 

With  the  arrangement  of  these  matters  Dis- 
trict Attorney  Langdon  immediately  busied  him- 
self, and  thus  it  was  that  during  the  first  few 
days  he  did  not  believe  an  application  would  be 
made  to  the  Supreme  Court,  but  thought  the 
decision  of  the  Court  of  Appeal  would  be  ac- 
cepted as  final. 

But  here  an  insurmountable  difficulty  arose 
from  an  entirely  unexpected  quarter.  Never  as 
thoroughly  broken  as  his  team-mate  Judge  Law- 
lor,  Judge   Dunne  suddenly   refused  to  pull  at 


THE    SCHMITZ    CASE  153 

the  crack  of  the  prosecution's  whip,  or  in  the 
lanofuasfe  of  Mr.  Henev,  he  refused  "to  come 
through."  With  most  stubborn  recalcitrance  he 
decHned  to  dismiss  the  indictments  against  Ruef 
pending  in  his  court,  and  thus,  again  in  the 
language  of  Mr.  Heney,  the  prosecutors  "were 
in  a  hole." 

Exposure  of  their  secret  dealings  with  Ruef 
was  imminent.  The  public  mind  must  not  be 
allowed  to  ponder  the  pertinent  queries  of  hostile 
critics  calculated  to  compel  disclosure  of  the  real 
state  of  affairs.  There  must  be  a  diversion ;  pub- 
lic attention  must  be  directed  elsewhere.  The 
decisioti  of  the  Court  of  Appeal  was  no  longer 
necessary  or  needed.  What  better  than  to  assail 
the  higher  courts?  The  more  venomous  the  ac- 
cusations the  more  certain  would  the  regenerators 
be  to  direct  attention  from  their  embarrassment. 
And  so  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  rain  of  stink- 
pots from  their  press,  the  prosecutors'  petition 
for  rehearing  of  the  Schmitz  case  was  handed  to 
the  Supreme  Court. 

In  the  petition  for  rehearing,  as  has  been  said, 
none  of  the  iniquities  of  the  trial  was  defended, 
nor  was  a  review  asked  of  any  of  the  Court  of 
Appeal's  animadversions  upon  them.  The  Su- 
preme Court  was  asked  to  consider  but  two  prop- 
ositions:  1,  a  motion  to  dismiss  the  appeal;  2,  the 
sufficiency  of  the  indictment.  As  illustrating 
the  willingness  of  the  prosecution  to  resort  to 
the  "detested  technicalities  of  the  law"  to  serve 


154  THE    REGENERATORS 

their  own  ends,  it  may  be  noted  that  both  the 
Court  of  Appeal  and  the  Supreme  Court  decided 
that  the  prosecution's  objections  to  giving  Schmitz 
a  hearing-  upon  the  merits  of  his  appeal  were 
utterly  frivolous  and  untenable. 

The  Court  of  Appeal  had  declared  that  the  in- 
dictment was  radically  defective,  and  this  deter- 
mination the  Supreme  Court  was  asked  to  re- 
view. The- determination  itself  was  not,  as  the 
prosecution  sought  to  have  believed,  a  shattering 
bolt  from  the  untroubled  blue.  All  the  objec- 
tions to  their  indictment  had  long  ago  been 
presented  to  their  consideration,  first,  by  de- 
murrer in  the  trial  court,  when  it  would  have 
been  the  easiest  possible  matter  to  save  all  ques- 
tion by  presenting  new  indictments  by  their 
grand  jury  which  still  remained  in  session,  and, 
second,  under  writs  of  habeas  corpus  sued  out 
by  Schmitz  and  Ruef  in  the  Supreme  Court, 
where  every  objection  to  the  indictments  was 
fully  argued.  The  Supreme  Court  did  not  hold 
the  indictments  good,  but  refused  to  pass  upon 
the  objections  to  them,  saying  they  were  not  re- 
viewable under  habeas  corpus,  and  could  only 
come  before  the  court  on  appeal  in  case  of  con- 
viction. So  the  prosecutors  were  fully  advised, 
and  the  remedy  was  ready  to  their  hand ;  but 
they  preferred  to  limp  along  with  these  defective 
indictments,  doubtless  for  the  reason  already 
given,  that  originally  they  cared  nothing  for 
them  and  never  expected  anything  to  grow  out 
of  them. 


THE    SCHMITZ    CASE  155 

The  Supreme  Court  afifirmed  the  decision  of 
the  Court  of  Appeal,  extending  the  citations  and 
elaborating  and  reasoning  of  the  latter  court. 
Here  were  two  courts  comprising  ten  judges  un- 
animously of  one  opinion.  In  any  other  com- 
munity than  California,  and  in  California  at  any 
other  time  than  this,  when  the  Graft  Prosecution 
had  it  by  the  throat,  the  standing,  learning  and 
dignity  of  those  ten  men  would  have  rendered 
utterly  impossible  the  recognition  of  the  clangor 
of  a  Heney,  the  threat  of  a  Bulletin,  or  the  scur- 
rility of  a  Johnson.  Nor  as  it  was  would  their 
uproar  have  amounted  to  anything  had  they  not 
cunningly  appealed  to  the  ignorance  and  credulity 
of  the  multitude,  employing  for  public  deception 
a  specious  bit  of  misrepresentation. 

If  proof  was  necessary  of  the  danger  of  the 
recall,  of  the  importance  of  safeguarding  the 
people  against  their  susceptibility  to  the  persua- 
sions of  the  unscrupulous,  what  occurred  in  Cali- 
fornia after  the  Schmitz  decisions  would  certainly 
be  admissible.  Every  pro-prosecution  organ  as- 
serted that  the  upper  courts  pronounced  the 
Schmitz  indictment  defective  because  it  failed  to 
charge  something  which  was  a  matter  of  com- 
mon knowledge — that  Schmitz  was  mayor.  How 
utterly  false  the  statement  was  will  be  disclosed 
to  anyone  taking  the  trouble  to  read  the  two 
decisions. 

Once  before  in  California  a  learned  and  upright 
justice  of  the  Supreme  bench   (now  an  honored 


156  THE    REGENERATORS 

member  of  the  Federal  judiciary)  in  discussing 
the  measure  of  damages  to  parents  for  the  death 
of  an  infant  child,  and  expounding  that  these 
damages  were  founded  on  the  estimated  pecun- 
iary loss  to  the  parents  of  the  services  of  the 
minor,  declared  that  in  the  case  of  a  poor 
family,  the  minor  children  frequently  contributed 
to  the  family  support,  while  in  the  case  of  a 
wealthy  family,  the  children  were  frequently  a 
bill  of  expense.  Mere  platitudes,  I  grant  you, 
yet  in  the  heat  of  an  election  which  soon  fol- 
lowed, a  hostile  newspaper  catchily  declared  that 
this  justice  had  decided  "that  the  life  of  a  poor 
man's  son  was  not  worth  as  much  as  the  life  of 
a  rich  man's  son."  The  story  swept  the  State 
like  wild  fire.  No  denial  or  explanation  by  the 
bar  of  the  State,  no  proof  that  the  statement 
charged  was  the  exact  opposite  of  the  statement 
made,  had  any  effect ;  the  lying  catch  phrase  was 
too  happy,  and  it  wrought  the  justice's  defeat. 

As  absolutely  false  and  nearly  as  effective  was 
the  catch  phrase  launched  against  the  higher 
courts  after  the  Schmitz  decision.  As  I  have 
said,  a  reading  of  the  two  opinions  will  disclose 
the  truth — that  neither  decision  is  based  upon  the 
absence  of  any  allegation,  and  that  the  absence 
alleged  is  not  even  considered.  The  courts  were 
not  discussing  what  the  indictment  did  not  con- 
tain, but  what  it  did  contain. 

Just  what  did  the  courts  decide?  There  is 
nothing  metaphysical  or  obscure  in  the  decisions 


THE    SCHMITZ    CASE  157 

— a  running  layman  can  understand  them  if  only 
he  will  read  them  ;  but  not  one  man  in  ten  thou- 
sand who  dogmatically  discusses  and  criticises  a 
judicial  opinion,  ever  thinks  it  worth  his  while 
to  read  it  that  he  may  inform  himself  of  what 
he  is  talking-  about.  We  don't  pretend  to  be 
great  doctors,  or  engineers,  or  architects,  or  gen- 
erals. But  one  and  all  we  are  great  jurists,  not 
in  the  making,  but  in  perfection.  I,  at  least, 
have  read  the  decisions.  This  is  what  they 
declare.  There  is  no  crime  in  this  State  except 
it  be  an  act  denounced  by  the  penal  laws.  Ex- 
tortion under  force  of  fear  or  threat  is  defined 
as  follows :  "Fear  such  as  will  constitute  extor- 
tion may  be  induced  by  a  threat  to  do  an  nnlazv- 
ful  injury  to  the  property  of  another."  The  ex- 
tortion charged  was  by  threat ;  but  the  threat  was 
not  to  do  an  unlawful  injury  to  property,  since, 
conceding  that  a  prospective  license  to  sell  liquor 
may  be  regarded  as  property,  the  threat  was  not 
to  do  an  unlaivful  injury  to  that  or  any  other 
property  of  the  restaurateurs.  For  anyone  may 
freely  go  before  the  commissioners  and  use 
his  influence  to  prevent  the  issuance  of  a 
license,  and  this  is  done  every  day.  Nor  can  the 
evil  motive  afifect  the  act  so  as  to  make  it  a  crime. 
This  has  long  since  been  decided  in  California, 
where  it  was  said  in  consonance  with  a  great 
weight  of  authority  that  "the  malicious  use  of 
lawful  means  to  induce  a  lawful  act  does  not 
make  the  resulting  injury  unlawful."    (Boyson  v. 


158  THE    REGENERATORS 

Thorne,  98  Cal.  578).  Now  it  was  not  charged 
that  unlawful  means  were  used.  If  it  were  meant 
to  charge  the  use  of  unlawful  means  they  should 
have  been  specifically  set  out ;  for  in  the  ab- 
sence of  averment  the  unlawful  means  could  not 
be  assumed.  The  Court  of  Appeal  uses  a  simple 
and  illuminating  illustration :  a  man  threatens 
his  neighbors  that  he  is  going  to  build  a  pviblic 
stable  upon  his  land.  The  effect  will  be  to  in- 
jure their  property.  His  motive  is  evil  and 
malicious.  His  threat  is  designed  to  extort 
money  from  them,  and  they,  buy  the  security  of 
their  property  by  paying  him.  the  amount  he  de- 
mands to  forego  his  plan.  Morally  he  is  an  ex- 
tortionist, legally  he  has  committed  no  crime. 
Even  the  layman  may  see  that  if  the  motive  of 
an  act  is  to  determine  its  criminality  the  law 
must  first  so  declare,  but  it  has  not  yet  done  so. 

This  is  the  substance  of  the  harmonious  deci- 
sions of  the  two  courts  upon  the  indictment. 
They  contain  no  strictures  upon  the  failure  of 
the  prosecution  to  charge  the  official  capacity  of 
Schmitz — though  w^hy  in  heaven's  name  the 
learned  pleaders  of  the  Graft  Prosecution  should 
so  carefully  have  refrained  from  mentioning  the 
fact  that  he  was  mayor — must  forever  remain 
an  unsolved  mystery.  The  court's  statement 
merely  is  that  the  indictment  fails  to  charge  a 
threat  to  do  an  unlawful  injury  to  property, 
which  threat  of  unlawful  injury  or  injury  by  un- 
lawful means  is  necessary  to  the  indictment. 


THE    SCHxMITZ    CASE  159 

And  now  we  come  to  the  last  episode.  In  the 
midst  of  the  roar  of  machine-made  abuse  which 
the  prosecution's  press  continued  to  utter  follow- 
ing the  Supreme  Court  decision,  the  Sacramento 
Bee  tendered  a  Grecian  invitation  to  the  Chief 
Justice  to  write  an  "explanation"  of  the  decision 
so  that  "the  man  in  the  street  might  understand 
it."  Single  minded  and  sincere,  not  appreciat- 
ing that  the  denunciation  of  his  court  was  fab- 
ricated and  the  misunderstanding  designed,  the 
Chief  Justice  wrote  to  the  Bee  a  public  letter 
expressing  his  individual  views.  It  fell,  as  it  was 
probably  meant  to  fall,  upon  deaf  ears  and  un- 
heeding minds.  But  in  that  letter,  for  the  first 
time,  the  Chief  Justice  pointing  out  the  defects 
of  the  indictment  and  how  they  could  be  rem- 
edied, said  that  if  it  had  been  charged  that 
Schmitz  \va.s  mayor,  and  Ruef  a  political  boss  of 
great  influence,  and  that  they  threatened  to  use 
unlawfully  their  position  and  power,  the  defect 
would  have  been  cured,  but  in  the  absence  of 
such  averment  judicial  notice  could  not  be  taken 
of  these  matters. 

Here  for  the  first  time  was  any  color  given  to 
the  lying  statements  of  the  press ;  not  by  the 
court,  for  its  decision  had  been  rendered  and 
had  become  final:  but  by  a  single  justice  ex- 
pressing his  own  views.  Of  course  if  the  indict- 
ment charged  unlawful  means,  it  would  cure  the 
defect  whether  the  unlawful  means  were  charged 
against   Schmitz   as   a   citizen   or   as   an   official. 


160  THE    REGENERATORS 

This,  however,  was  promptly  put  in  the  bact- 
ground,  and  again  the  cry  was  raised  that  the 
Supreme  Court  had  declared  the  indictment  bad 
because  it  did  not  allege  that  Schmitz  was  mayor. 

Into  this  melee,  at  the  behest  of  Heney,  rushes 
the  intrepid  Professor  Wigmore,  and  with  up- 
raised sword  assaults  the  astonished  Chief  Jus- 
tice. This  is  his  slashing  stroke :  "Courts  should 
take  notice  of  anything  that  is  notorious ;  if  then 
a  man  named  Schmitz  was  notoriously  mayor 
of  San  Francisco  and  a  man  named  Ruef  was 
notoriously  its  political  boss  at  the  time  in  ques- 
tion, that  is  all  that  any  court  needs."  There- 
fore, all  the  courts  should  have  taken  judicial 
notice  of  these  facts  and  thus  have  cured  the 
defective  indictment.  Mr.  Wigmore  is  con- 
strained to  admit  that  "there  are  dozens  of  other 
supreme  justices  who  would  decide  and  are  de- 
ciding just  such  points  in  just  the  same  way  as 
the  California  case,"  but  they  are  disposed  of 
with  a  wave  of  the  pen  as  non-progressive. 

I  write  as  a  historian  and  not  as  a  partisan  of 
either  side  in  this  memorable  strife.  But  it  must 
occur  even  to  the  unthinking  that  Professor 
Wigmore's  letter  is  not  all-satisfying.  While  it  is 
easy  for  a  private  lawyer  to  invent  desirable 
changes  in  the  rules  of  law  or  evidence,  a 
judge  on  the  bench,  under  his  oath  of  office,  is 
denied  that  pleasure  and  may  only  construe  the 
rules  of  evidence  laid  down  for  his  guidance  by 
the  legislature.    Although  it  may  be  an  admirable 


THE    SCHMITZ    CASE  161 

innovation  in  the  law  of  evidence  for  the  courts 
to  take  judicial  notice  of  anything  notorious, 
the  courts  of  CaHfornia  can  do  so  only  under 
legislative  mandate  and  not  under  Professor 
Wigmore's.  The  legislature  has  explicitly  de- 
scribed the  things  and  all  the  things  of  which  the 
courts  of  this  State  may  take  judicial  notice, 
and  "things  notorious"  are  not  among  them. 
And  perhaps  this  obedience  to  the  Constitution 
and  their  oaths,  rather  than  their  dull  inertia 
against  the  uplift  of  progressive  law  not  found  in 
the  statutes,  explains  the  attitude  of  the  dozens 
of  supreme  justices  in  other  States — justices 
who,  while  willing  to  see  in  Professor  Wigmore's 
closet-made  laws  the  lamp  of  divine  guidance, 
still  feel  bound  to  steer  by  the  rush-light  of  their 
constitutional  obligations. 

Professor  Wigmore  was  not  left  to  battle 
alone  with  his  windmills.  To  his  aid  came 
James  M.  Kerr,  formerly  of  an  Ohio  institution 
not  less  important  for  educational  purposes 
than  the  one  in  which  Professor  Wigmore 
labors  as  an  instructor.  Kerr  is  now  engaged 
in  annotating  the  codes  of  California,  and  by  rea- 
son of  his  past  experience  his  knowledge  of  crim- 
inal law  is  not  to  be  despised.  Mr.  Kerr,  with 
a  delicacy  to  be  expected,  put  his  criticism  of 
the  decision  in  the  Penal  Code  he  was  annotat- 
ing. "It  is  thought,"  he  says,  "that  the  decision 
viola.es  well  recognized  rules  of  statutory  con- 
struction,   and    well    settled    rules    of    criminal 


162  THE    REGENERATORS 

pleading-,  and  that  the  case  cannot  be  safely  re- 
lied on  as  an  authority  outside  of  California." 
Mr.  Heney,  also,  came  to  the  front  with  a  letter; 
but  Mr.  Heney's  contributions  to  the  literature 
of  the  law  are  universally  recognized  as  having 
a  claim  to  consideration  only  for  their  vitupera- 
tive charm,  being  in  all  other  respects  negligible. 
Against  all  this  may  be  placed  the  note  of  the 
editors  of  the  Law  Reports  Annotated  (15  L.  R. 
A.  New  Series,  717).  Writing  from  a  distance, 
uninterested  and  presumably  unbiased,  they  say 
of  the  decision :  "The  case  is  in  harmony  with 
such  other  cases  as  have  had  occasion  to  pass  on 
the  question."  This  they  proceed  to  show  by 
many  pages  of  citation  and  quotation. 


VIII 

THE    DYNAMITE    EXPLOSION 

A  Miracle  by  Which  the  Precious  Life  of  a  Great 

Grafter  Was  Spared,  and  Which  Enabled 

the  Regenerators  to  Inflame  Public 

Sentiment 

At  no  time  during-  the  Graft  Prosecution  was 
the  performance  allowed  to  flag.  Whenever 
public  interest  seemed  on  the  point  of  drooping 
something  occurred  to  whip  it  up.  And  in- 
variably the  something  served  the  purposes  of 
the  pro-prosecution  press.  It  was  as  though 
some  power  had  contrived  a  preternaturally  in- 
genious species  of  drama, — a  piece  historique, 
as  it  were,  abounding  in  desperately  conflicting 
events,  sensational  efifects.  picturesque  situations, 
unlooked  for  rencontres,  calculated  to  ravish  the 
senses,  fillip  the  imagination  and  keep  every- 
body on  the  qui  vivc.  The  times  were  incessantly 
feverish.  It  was  melodrama  from  beginning  to 
end.  Murder  was  always  in  the  air.  Con- 
spiracies to  kidnap  or  kill  were  of  monthly  oc- 
currence— in  the  press,  nowhere  else.  To  the 
defendants  were  continuously  imputed  the  most 
fiendish  designs,  thus  justifying  repeated  ad- 
monitions to  the  public  to  be  ever  on  the  alert 
lest  the  complete  subversion  of  government  be 


164  THE    REGENERATORS 

effected  with  the  suddenness  of  a  bolt  from  the 
blue.  All  of  which  served  to  harrow  up  the 
souls  of  the  susceptible  and  inspire  them  with 
hatred  of  the  abandoned  wretches  who  had  the 
audacity  to  persist  in  fighting  for  their  liberty. 

Never  was  this  machinery  for  the  firing  of 
public  sentiment  so  active  as  during  the  trials  of 
Abraham  Ruef.  His  first  trial,  after  the  repudia- 
tion of  his  immunity  contract,  was  begun  in 
April,  1908.  The  trial  of  Tirey  L.  Ford  was 
then  in  progress  before  Judge  Lawlor.  This 
was  the  first  time  that  two  graft  trials  ran  con- 
temporaneously. Hitherto  it  was  the  policy  of 
the  prosecution  to  keep  their  forces  united.  But 
at  this  period  there  was  need  of  renewed  and 
extraordinary  activity.  More  than  two  years 
had  elapsed  since  the  grand  effusion  of  indict- 
ments, and  nothing  had  been  accomplished. 
The  Graft  Prosecution  was  becoming  an  old 
story.  Also,  as  a  consequence  of  criminations 
and  recriminations  incident  to  the  scandal  which 
Ruef  had  broached,  it  was  too  severely  taxing 
the  credulity  of  even  the  average  citizen.  In- 
deed the  sacred  cause  of  the  regenerators  was 
becoming  an  object  of  ridicule.  And  what 
worse  fate  could  befall  them  than  to  have  atten- 
tion diverted  from  their  virtues  and  concentrated 
on  their  preposterous  affectations ;  to  be  laughed 
at  for  their  follies  rather  than  acclaimed  for  their 
patriotic  endeavors !  This  was  precisely  the  sad 
experience  they  endured  for  a  time.     Mr.  Will- 


THE    DYNAMITE    EXPLOSION  165 

iam  R.  Hearst's  Examiner,  quick  to  apprehend 
the  temper  of  the  times,  shifted  the  civic  heroes 
from  the  domain  of  the  tragic  to  the  atmosphere 
of  the  comic  and  held  them  up  to  the  vulgar 
derision  of  the  groundlings.  "Bud"  Fisher, 
cartoonist,  introduced  all  the  heroes  to  the  read- 
ers of  the  Examiner  in  his  Mutt  sketches,  and 
put  the  whole  town  on  a  broad  grin.  This  was 
the  posture  of  afifairs  when  Ruef  was  forced  to 
trial  on  an  indictment  charging  him  with  having 
bribed  a  supervisor  to  pass  the  Parkside  fran- 
chise. Every  civic  patriot  was  down  in  the 
mouth.  The  tide  was  running  strong  against 
the  battered  hulk  of  righteousness.  But  as 
events  proved,  while  Mr.  Spreckels  and  his  as- 
sociates were  in  the  slough  of  despond,  believ- 
ing that  they  were  being  overwhelmed  by  mis- 
chievous accidents  in  the  lottery  of  life,  they  were 
really  groping  in  the  darkest  hour  before  dawn. 

Midway  in  the  process  of  impaneling  the  jury 
a  violent  wrench  was  given  to  the  situation  of 
affairs,  heartening  the  prosecutors  and  filling  the 
objects  of  their  hatred  with  dismay.  This  over- 
due occurrence,  by  which  a  remarkable  trans- 
formation was  effected,  was  a  dynamite  explosion 
in  Oakland,  across  the  bay,  which  wrecked  the 
home  of  James  Gallagher,  star  witness  and  con- 
necting link  between  Ruef  and  the  supervisors. 

For  the  men  on  trial  what  a  strange  fatality 
was  this !  How  readily  and  reasonably  might 
one  conclude  that  the  higher-ups  had  attempted 


166  THE    REGENERATORS 

to  assassinate  the  one  man  without  whose  testi- 
mony conviction  was  impossible !  Nay,  there 
was  hardly  any  escape  from  the  conclusion  for 
anybody  whose  prepossessions  were  of  a  certain 
color.  There  was  room  for  scepticism  only  for 
those  hardened,  unregenerate  ones,  who  were 
capable  of  conceiving  the  possibility  of  what  is 
technically  known  as  a  "frame-up,"  which 
species  of  theatrical  expedient  was  rendered 
tolerably  familiar  to  the  people  of  San  Francisco 
after  they  made  the  acquaintance  of  Detective 
William  J.  Burns. 

The  pro-graft  press  made  good  use  of  that 
dynamite  explosion.  With  their  speculations 
concerning  it  they  set  in  motion  all  the  com- 
bustible part  of  men's  passions.  Everything  was 
taken  for  granted  that  served  as  nourishment 
for  the  spleen.  The  higher-ups  were  damned 
by  wholesale.  At  first  it  was  argued  that  the 
dynamiter  was  the  hireling  of  the  United  Rail- 
roads, but  in  time  it  was  assumed  that  Ruef  had 
inspired  the  atrocious  deed.  No  pro-prosecution 
editor  permitted  his  "frail  thoughts  to  dally  with 
faint  surmise."  Yet  that  dynamite  explosion  had 
certain  curious  features  that  might  perplex  an 
unprejudiced  mind.  It  was  a  terrific  explosion. 
It  tore  away  the  front  of  the  house,  and  wrecked 
every  room,  smashing  furniture  and  twisting 
chandeliers.  Evidently  the  explosive  had  de- 
rived force  from  reaction  against  the  walls  of 
the  vestibule  in  which  it  had  been  placed.   Perhaps 


THE    DYNAMITE    EXPLOSION  167 

it  did  more  damage  than  was  calculated.  But 
notwithstanding  all  the  damage  that  was  done 
no  person  was  injured.  The  room  that  Gal- 
lagher said  he  was  in  when  the  explosion  oc- 
curred was  badly  wrecked.  Even  the  furniture 
was  wrecked.  Yet  Gallagher  did  not  receive  a 
scratch.  "By  a  strange  freak,"  said  the  San 
Francisco  Call,  "not  a  person  in  the  house  was 
injured."  It  was  indeed  "a  strange  freak"! 
And  the  Bulletin  commenting  on  the  explosion 
exclaimed :  "A  miracle  spared  the  lives  of  eight 
people."  Yes,  it  was  necessary  to  believe  in 
miracles  for  the  purposes  of  the  regenerators. 
What  appeared  to  be  "a.  miracle"  and  also  "a 
freak"  might  have  been  explained  on  the  hypoth- 
esis that  Gallagher  and  his  family,  having  re- 
ceived a  timely  and  impressive  premonition,  with- 
drew into  the  backyard  just  before  the  explosion 
occurred.  Some  persons  who  didn't  believe  in 
miracles  visited  the  house — and  they  didn't  be- 
lieve Gallagher  either.  They  said  he  was  mis- 
taken. To  them  his  statement  that  he  was  in 
the  house  at  the  time  of  the  explosion  was  in- 
credible,  nay,   preposterous. 

Several  days  after  the  explosion  it  was  learned 
that  some  months  prior  to  the  occurrence  the 
police  had  arrested  a  man  by  the  name  of  Wil- 
helm  on  the  suspicion  that  he  was  a  dynamiter. 
He  was  in  custody  four  days,  and  was  then  re- 
leased. The  news  of  his  arrest  was  not  given 
to  the  press.     There  may  be  more  or  less  sig- 


168  THE    REGENERATORS 

nificance  in  the  circumstance  that  at  that  time 
former  EHsor  Bigg"y  was  chief  of  poHce,  working 
in  harmony  with  Detective  Burns,  at  whose  in- 
stigation the  arrest  was  made.  The  Examiner, 
teUing  of  this  arrest  after  the  explosion,  said 
that  Wilhehn  told  the  police  that  Burns  "em- 
ployed him  in  his  professional  capacity  as  a 
bombmaker  to  make  a  bomb  for  a  demonstra- 
tion against  Judge  Lawlor  and  so  turn  public 
favor  toward  the  prosecution."  The  police  got 
on  the  trail  of  Wilhelm  again  after  the  explosion 
and  arrested  him,  and  he  told  his  story.  He  said 
that  J.  M.  Macey,  a  detective  employed  by 
Burns,  and  a  young  man  whom  he  believed  to  be 
Burns's  son,  visited  him  one  day  in  Oakland, 
and  representing  that  they  were  employed  by 
the  United  Railroads,  told  him  that  they  would 
pay  him  $200  for  some  bombs.  Suspicious  of 
them,  he  pretended  to  accept  the  proposition. 
They  made  an  engagement  to  meet  him  a  few 
days  later,  when,  he  said,  he  would  have  the 
bombs  ready.  Then  out  of  two  small  pieces 
of  pipe  he  made  what  looked  like  bombs,  and 
according  to  agreement  he  met  Macey  and  his 
companion  and  crossed  the  bay  with  them.  Al- 
most as  soon  as  he  got  off  the  boat  he  was  ar- 
rested by  two  policemen  who  locked  him  up.  He 
was  kept  in  custody  until  the  city  chemist  found 
that  the  pipes  did  not  contain  explosives.  This 
was  a  case  of  the  professional  bomb-maker  foil- 
iner  and  hoaxinsf  the  ins^enious  detective.     When 


THE    DYNAMITE    EXPLOSION  169 

Burns  was  interviewed  about  this  episode  he  ex- 
plained that  W'ilhehn  had  been  doing  a  great  deal 
of  talking  about  having  had  his  professional 
services  solicited  by  the  United  Railroads,  and 
that  he  had  hoped  to  trap  him.  This  explana- 
tion was  satisfactory  to  the  pro-prosecution 
press. 

The  Ford  and  Ruef  trials  being  in  progress, 
every  day  the  pro-prosecution  press  had  some- 
thing to  say  about  the  dynamite  explosion. 
This  is  a  specimen  from  the  Call :  "While  not  the 
slightest  clue  has  been  gained  as  to  the  identity 
of  the  perpetrators  of  the  dastardly  attempt  on 
Gallagher's  life,  every  circumstance  connected 
with  the  affair  points  straight  to  one  conclusion 
— that  it  was  the  work  of  men  hired  by  men  in 
desperate  dread  of  Gallagher's  testimony." 
Again  in  the  same  journal  was  printed  the  fol- 
lowing: "That  the  dynamiting  of  former  Super- 
visor Gallagher's  house,  by  which  he  and  seven 
other  persons  came  near  to  death,  was  done  for 
the  purpose  of  keeping  Gallagher  off  the  wit- 
ness stand  in  the  graft  cases  seems  to  be  the 
practically  unanimous  judgment.  No  other 
theory  seems  to  hold  water."  What  a  wonder- 
ful instrument  is  that  which  registers  the  un- 
animous judgments  of  the  people! 

Every  day  the  Bulletin  was  uniting  its  vocif- 
erations with  those  of  the  Call.  And  Francis  J. 
Heney,  though  engaged  in  the  prosecution  of 
Ruef,    found    time    to    hurl    reproaches    at    the 


170  THE    REGENERATORS 

higher-ups.  He  is  to  be  found  quoted  in  the 
Call  of  April  24  as  follows:  "It  was  obvious  that 
it  was  instigated  by  persons  who  can  be  injured 
by  his  testimony  in  the  graft  cases.  I  have 
long  been  expecting  this  to  happen."  Heney 
was  a  prophet,  and  not  always  for  his  own 
amusement.  What  he  expected  he  did  not  al- 
ways keep  to  himself.  His  powers  of  vaticina- 
tion were  employed  not  so  much  to  predict 
catastrophe  as  to  enlighten  the  people  as  to  how 
many  and  what  men  he  would  land  in  jail.  His 
favorite  pastime  was  painting  his  prospective 
triumphs  "on  the  cloud-curtains  of  the  future." 
"I'll  get  him !"  was  his  favorite  phrase  when  re- 
ferring to  any  man  under  indictment.  Nor  did 
he  confine  his  predictions  to  indicted  ones.  All 
the  anti-prosecution  editors  were  to  be  put  into 
stripes.  For  example,  here's  Heney  at  the  First 
Congregational  Church  in  Oakland,  as  disclosed 
by  the  Bulletin  of  March  27,  1908:  "We  will 
win  despite  Dargie  and  the  Oakland  Tribune, 
and  we  will  persevere  until  we  land  Dargie 
where  he  belongs.  And  that  you  may  not  mis- 
take my  meaning  in  saying  that,  I  mean  that  we 
will  land  him  behind  the  bars."  Poor  Dargie ! 
God  intervened,  taking  him  away  from  Heney. 
Dargie  went  to  his  grave  in  January,  1910,  in 
a  suit  of  unstriped  broadcloth. 

Enough  of  digression.  No  light  was  thrown 
on  the  dynamite  outrage  before  the  close  of 
either  the  Ford  or  the  Ruef  trial.     Nothing  was 


THE    DYNAMITE    EXPLOSION  171 

discovered  beyond  what  has  been  stated :  that 
Gallagher  escaped  by  a  miracle  and  that  Burns 
had  been  dealing  with  a  professional  dynamiter. 
Yet  the  pro-prosecution  press  almost  daily  ac- 
cused the  defendants  of  having  had  a  hand  in 
the  crime.  The  Bulletin  charged  that  "for 
months  Gallagher  had  been  selected  as  a  sacrifice 
to  the  terror  of  those  whom  his  confession  could 
harm.  Within  a  week  after  the  crime  the  Bul- 
letin  appeared   with   this   scare-head :     "plot   to 

MURDER  PLANNED  BY  HIGHER-UPS  A  MONTH  AGO.'^ 

This  was  the  story  of  a  plot  to  murder  the  Bul- 
letin's editor,  Fremont  Older,  who,  we  were  told, 
"was  being  shadowed  by  a  thug  in  the  employ  of 
the  United  Railroads."  For  awhile  Mr.  Older 
was  in  constant  dread  of  assassination,  and  he 
told  the  readers  of  the  Bulletin  almost  every  day 
about  plots  for  his  undoing.  He  printed  a  whole 
series  of  fac  simile  anonymous  letters  threaten- 
ing him  with  instant  destruction.  On  June  2 
he  published  a  letter  under  this  headline:  mur- 
derous HIGHER-UPS  AFFIX  BLOODSTAINS  TO  LAT- 
EST WARNING  LETTER."  From  Older's  stand- 
point these  were  indeed  horrific  times.  But 
there  were  mean  cynics  who  voiced  the  suspicion 
that  Burns  was  Older's  correspondent.  There 
were  thousands  of  people,  however,  who  be- 
lieved in  Older  and  sympathized  with  him.  Well 
did  they  remember  that  he  had  been  kidnaped 
by  an  attorney  connected  with  the  defense. 
Older  often  reminded  them  of  that  harrowing 


172  THE    REGENERATORS 

experience.  True  the  Bulletin  had  libeled  the  at- 
torney ;  but  that  was  another  story,  and  it  was 
of  no  consequence  from  the  editor's  standpoint. 
True,  also,  the  attorney,  who  lived  in  Los  An- 
geles, kidnaped  Older  with  the  assistance  of  a 
sheriff's  deputy  who  had  a  warrant.  True,  also, 
the  complainant  knew  that  as  the  regenerators 
were  personally  conducting-  the  whole  criminal 
department  of  justice  in  San  Francisco  it  would 
have  been  useless  to  swear  out  a  warrant  in  that 
city ;  but  the  fact  is  that  Older  was  kidnaped  in 
the  sense  that  he  wasn't  vouchsafed  the  privilege 
of  appearing  before  the  nearest  magistrate.  The 
episode  served  as  the  pretext  for  a  great  hul- 
labaloo promoted  chiefly  by  Detective  W.  J. 
Burns,  who  himself  has  since  practiced  the  gentle 
art  of  kidnaping  on  a  large  scale.  The  kidnap- 
ing of  Older  enabled  him  to  pose  as  a  martyr 
to  the  cause  of  freedom  with  fine  verisimilitude. 
And  so  when  he  represented  himself  to  be  in 
danger  of  assassination  there  were  many  people 
■^  to  take  him  seriously  and  to  shudder  at  the  in- 
fernality  of  the  higher-ups. 

Notwithstanding  the  incessant  rage  and  hyste- 
ria of  the  editors  after  the  outrage  and  miracle 
in  Oakland ;  spite  of  the  agitation  which  they 
personally  conducted  and  all  the  noise  with  which 
they  assailed  the  ears  of  men  in  the  jury-box, 
Tirey  L.  Ford  was  acquitted  and  the  Ruef  jury 
failed  to  agree. 

Ruef's  trial  ended  May  21,   1908.     The  jury 


THE    DYNAiMlTl':    EXPLOSION  173 

was  out  forty-three  hours,  and  from  the  first  to 
the  last  ballot  they  stood  six  to  six. 

Between  Ruef's  first  and  second  trials  there 
was  a  long  intermission.  Gallagher  was  given 
a  vacation,  and  permitted  to  take  a  pleasure  trip 
to  New  York.  Patrick  Calhoun  had  been 
clamoring  for  a  trial  for  two  years,  and  was 
still  clamoring,  but  the  prosecution  felt  in  need 
of  a  rest ;  that  is,  the  attorneys  and  judges  wished 
to  recuperate  from  their  arduous  labors  in  court. 
Besides  it  was  desirable  to  hammer  away  at 
public  sentiment,  to  generate  once  more  the 
mood  vindictive.  The  machinery  of  justice 
might  be  brought  to  a  standstill,  but  never  for 
a  moment  was  a  truce  declared.  Skirmishing- 
was  continuous,  the  smoke  of  battle  never  lifted, 
the  nerves  of  the  dear  general  were  always  on 
edge. 

As  soon  as  the  Ruef  jury  was  dismissed  the 
pro-prosecution  press  worked  itself  into  a  fright- 
ful fury,  communicating  its  stormy  emotions  to 
all  the  gallant  reformers  who  had  been  faith- 
fully following  the  fortunes  of  the  regenerators. 
The  Bulletin,  as  always,  out-vociferated  its  con- 
temporaries, and  hinting  at  the  desirability  of  a 
\'igilance  Committee,  printed  in  large  type  the 
names  of  the  six  jurors  who  had  voted  for  ac- 
quittal. This  was  the  Bulletin's  idea  of  exact- 
ing justice.  One  day  it  brought  an  incendiary 
editorial  to  a  close  with  these  words :  "Citizens 
what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?"     The  ques- 


174  THE    REGENERATORS 

tion  seemed  a  most  pertinent  one  to  the  editor 
of  the  Bulletin.  It  was  certainly  pregnant  with 
inspiration ;  for  the  next  day  the  Bulletin  con- 
spicuously "boxed"  the  following-  paragraphs  on 
its  editorial  page — 

Citizens: 

What  ore  yon  going  to  do  about  it? 
Dynamiting  assassins  are  pursuing  the  peo- 
ple's principal  witnesses  against  millionaires 
who  debauched  your  city. 
Honest  and  fearless  judges — Lazvlor  and 
Dunne — are  ridiculed  and  lampooned  for 
striding  to  enforce  the  /</7C'  agai)ist  rich 
felons. 

Prosecutors  of  bribe  gii'crs  are  denounced 
and  ■I'ilified  for  fighting  for  decency  and 
justice. 

Jur\-fi.ving  is  systematically  in  vogue. 
Your  upper  courts  find  technicalities  ivith 
zuhich  to  free  criminals,  and  never  discover 
laws  that  protect  society  and  the  State  from 
the  rapacity  of  boodlers.  All  your  legal 
machinery  for  the  punishment  of  crimes  is 
seemingly  manipulated  to  frustrate  justice. 
What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it? 

What  the  editor  of  the  Bulletm  hoped  would 
be  done  about  it  everybody  understood.  He  was 
always  passionately  hankering  for  a  lynching  bee, 
at  which,  of  course,  it  was  to  be  hoped  he  would 
not  be  on  the  wrong  end  of  the  rope.     When  the 


THE    DYNAMITE    EXPLOSION  175 

Schniitz  case  was  decided  by  the  Court  of  Appeal 
the  Bulletin  printed  the  names  of  the  judges  and 
their  home  addresses,  thus  to  intimate  that  they 
mig-ht  easily  be  found  by  a  bloodthirsty  mob. 
Whenever  things  were  not  going  to  suit  the  Bul- 
letin's editor  he  darkly  intimated  that  the  time 
was  ripe  for  summary  justice. 

The  Call,  though  never  quite  as  rampageous 
as  the  Bulletin,  was  not  averse  to  rousing  "the 
spirit  of  the  pioneers."  On  June  2.  1908,  the 
Call  printed  a  cartoon,  the  salient  feature  of 
which  was  a  hand  holding  a  noose.  It  was 
entitled  "The  Law."  And  this  same  paper,  as 
though  fearful  that  the  organization  of  a  Vigil- 
ance Committee  was  seriously  contemplated,  pro- 
tested pharisaically,  saying:  "The  Call's  faith 
is  firm  in  the  ultimate  triumph  of  justice. 
Dynamite  or  no  dynamite,  murder  or  no  murder, 
witnesses  will  testify."  In  this  same  editorial, 
affirming  its  faith  in  the  ultimate  triumph  of 
justice,  the  Call  was  constrained  to  confess  that 
the  current  reign  of  terror  was  "a  terrible 
thing."  To  this  sentiment  color  was  quickly 
given  by  all  the  preachers  and  politicians  on 
whom  the  cabal  relied  whenever  a  demonstra- 
tion or  upheaval  of  any  sort  was  required.  The 
Rev.  William  Rader,  sometime  editorial  writer 
of  the  Bulletin,  took  to  the  pulpit,  and  what  he 
said  was  thus  summarized  in  Bulletin  headlines 
of  June  8:  "Flays  People  Who  Defend  Wealthy 
Rogues :    Rev.    William    Rader    Calls    on    Good 


176  THE    REGENERATORS 

Citizens  to  Uphold  Law ;  Enemies  of  Decency 
Sow  the  Seeds  of  Revokttion  and  Death." 

Great  is  the  uproar  of  the  interhide  between 
trials !  What  energy  and  cunning — yes,  what 
deviltry — must  be  involved  in  this  loud  raucous 
appeal  to  the  unreason  of  the  mob !  One  can 
almost  admire  the  marvelous  exercise  of  wit  in 
the  evil  work. 

Think  you,  good  reader,  that  there  was  noth- 
ing of  malign,  malevolent  genius  in  all  this? 
that  behind  it  all  was  the  consuming  passion  of 
patriotism  and  disinterested  love  of  justice? 
Here  we  see  a  coterie  of  reformers  industriously 
setting  a  community  by  the  ears,  inciting  men 
to  deeds  of  cruelty  and  violence,  and  to  what 
end?  Ostensibly  to  vindicate  justice.  Presum- 
ably they  were  striving  to  strengthen  the  arm 
of  government,  to  prop  with  moral  instruments 
the  tottering  pillar  inscribed  to  human  liberty. 
But  what  was  the  occasion  of  all  this  heat  and 
passion  ?  Was  the  situation  in  San  Francisco  in 
1908  similar  to  that  of  1856  when  Cora  and 
Casey  were  hanged  by  the  Vigilantes?  No,  the 
two  situations  were  as  different  as  night  and  day. 
In  the  turbulent  days  of  '56  the  Vigilantes  were 
organized  because  of  the  corruption  and  im- 
potency  of  the  municipal  government.  In  1908 
the  men  who  were  appealing  to  passion  and 
prejudice  were  the  Government.  The  mayor 
and  all  the  supervisors  were  the  puppets  of  the 
regenerators.      The    district    attorney    and    his 


THE    DYNAMITE    EXPLOSION  177 

deputies  were  representatives  of  the  reform  cabal. 
The  chief  of  poHce  was  a  man  who  had  been 
employed  by  them,  who  was  appointed  to  his 
office  at  their  instigation,  and  who  at  this  time 
was  co-operating"  with  them.  All  the  cases 
which  they  were  prosecuting  were  in  two  courts 
presided  over  by  judges  in  deep  sympathy  with 
them.  Yet  for  them,  according  to  their  repre- 
sentations, the  times  were  out  of  joint.  With 
the  business  of  maintaining  law  and  order  com- 
pletely in  their  hands,  we  find  them  trying  to  in- 
cite the  mob  to  disorder.  We  have  heard  them 
complain  that  the  machinery  of  justice  was 
broken  down  ;  charge  that  the  upper  courts  were 
in  league  with  criminals,  and  that  there  was 
systematic  jury-bribing.  Yet  the  fact  is  that  up 
to  this  time  the  upper  courts  had  ruled  against 
them  but  once.  Several  writs  had  been  sued  out 
to  thwart  them,  and  in  vain.  The  Schmitz  de- 
cision was  the  only  decision  against  them,  and 
that  was  a  unanimous  decision. 

The  truth  is  the  regenerators  were  suffering  de- 
feat right  along  in  the  trial  courts  where  they  were 
masters  of  every  situation.  Spite  of  all  their 
machinery  for  sifting  juries,  spite  of  the  extra- 
ordinary latitude  they  were  allowed  in  their 
method  of  getting  juries,  and  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  every  juror  from  the  day  he  was 
sworn  was  put  into  the  custody  of  one  of  their 
representatives,  they  could  not  convict  on  the 
purchased  testimony  of  informers.     Defeat  after 


178  THE    REGENERATORS 

defeat  did  they  suffer  before  juries  selected  for 
them  by  friendly  judges,  and  they  must  have  well 
apprehended  the  inherent  weakness  of  the  prose- 
cution, which  was  nothing  more  nor  less  than 
the  character  of  their  witnesses  and  the  tainted 
quality  of  the  only  testimony  they  had  to  offer. 

It  is  a  truism  that  when  men  have  truth,  rea- 
son and  justice  on  their  side,  they  reqviire  noth- 
ing else  to  strengthen  their  equipment.  Assum- 
ing that  the  regenerators  were  thus  armed,  how 
singular  that  with  all  the  other  advantages  which 
they  are  known  to  have  possessed  they  should 
have  been  making  such  a  hullabaloo  in  the  spring 
and  summer  of   1908 ! 

Their  activities  I  have  but  faintly  described. 
At  this  time  we  find  Heney  and  Langdon  ad- 
dressing meetings  almost  every  night,  exhorting 
the  populace  to  come  to  their  aid.  Also,  for  the 
purpose  at  once  of  personally  interesting  a  great 
many  people  in  the  prosecution  and  stirring  pub- 
lic sympathy,  we  find  the  Bulletin  begging  the 
people  to  subscribe  to  a  fund  to  support 
Heney,  who  was  represented  to  be  growing 
poor  in  the  public  service,  and  we  find  the 
Bulletin  collecting  dimes  and  quarters  for  the 
little  patriot.  At  the  same  time  Langdon  peti- 
tioned the  supervisors  for  an  appropriation  of 
$120,000  which,  he  said,  was  needed  for  secret 
service  men,  and  which  of  course  was  allowed. 
Addressing  the  supervisors  he  said :  "It  is  no 
longer  simply  a  fight  of  the  law  against  graft 


THE    DYNAMITE    EXPLOSION  1/9 

and  grafters ;  it  has  become  a  fight  of  anarchy 
against  law.  The  issue  is  whether  the  people 
will  countenance  or  conclenni  assassination  and 
murder."  A  few  days  later  a  Law  and  Order 
League  was  organized  under  the  auspices  of  the 
regenerators.  This  was  probably  to  indicate 
that  the  police  were  not  powerful  enough  to 
cope  with  the  crisis.  But  as  there  was  nothing 
for  the  Law  and  Order  League  to  do,  it  never 
did  anything  but  meet  and  let  off  steam. 

On  June  20  when  all  the  preachers  were  weary 
and  the  newspaper  were  becoming  monotonous 
a  timely  message  was  received  from  President 
Roosevelt.  It  was  thus  described  in  headlines 
in  the  Call :  roosevelt  writes  a  strong  message 

AGAINST  LOCAL  GRAFT;  KEEP  UP  THE  FIGHT, 
writes  president  ROOSEVELT  TO  SPRECKELS  ; 
EXECUTIVE   TELLS    GRAFT    PROSECUTION    TO    IGNORE 

SLANDER  OF  ENEMIES."  T.  R.  was  alivc  to  the 
situation.  As  much  so  as  was  the  Christian  En- 
deavor L^nion  of  Sonoma,  which  contributed  to 
the  literature  of  the  period — a  letter  to  the  editor 
of  the  Bulletin :  '"We  heartily  endorse  your  pub- 
lic portrayal  of  the  truth  as  it  exists  even  though 
in  so  doing  you  almost  take  your  life  in  your 
hand  as  it  were."  This  sentiment  was  of  course 
apropos  of  the  dynamite'  outrage  in  Oakland. 

On  that  crime  light  was  presently  to  be  shed. 
The  Bulletin  offered  a  reward  of  $1,000  for  in- 
formation that  would  lead  to  the  arrest  of  the 
perpetrators.     It   was    still    assumed,    of   course, 


180  THE    REGENERATORS 

notwithstanding-  what  Wilhehn  had  said  about 
"a  demonstration  against  Judge  Lawlor,"  that 
the  higher-ups  were  guilty  of  the  crime.  One 
day  a  newsboy  found  a  letter  in  the  street  pur- 
porting to  have  been  written  by  John  Claudianes 
to  his  brother  Peter  Claudianes  in  the  town  of 
Chico,  demanding  money.  "If  you  don't  send 
the  money,"  said  the  writer,  "1  will  give  you 
away,  and  tell  all  about  the  dynamiting."  Here 
was  certainly  a  clue.  It  was  just  such  a  clue  as 
a  raw  hand  at  dramaturgy  might  have  contrived. 
And  it  was  a  very  good  clue.  For  almost  im- 
mediately after  the  finding,  of  the  letter  John 
Claudianes  was  in  the  hands  of  the  man  of  preter- 
natural instinct,  Mr.  William  J.  Burns.  The  let- 
ter was  found  on  July  1.  It  was  learned  that 
on  June  29  John  Claudianes  appeared  in  the  Bul- 
letin office  and  demanded  the  reward,  saying  that 
he  could  find  the  dynamiter.  But  Mr.  Fremont 
Older  wouldn't  believe  him.  Why  Mr.  Older 
was  sceptical  in  this  instance  has  never  been  ex- 
plained ;  nor  why  he  let  John  Claudianes  get 
away.  But  then  explanations  are  a  weariness  to 
the  flesh,  and  it  is  easy  to  make  them  anyway. 
As  it  turned  out,  Older's  scepticism  didn't  matter ; 
nor  his  carelessness  either.  John  Claudianes  was 
doomed  to  be  caught.  Fate  that  prepares  things 
from  all  eternity  had  decreed  the  writing  of  the 
fatal  letter ;  the  loss  of  it,  also,  and  the  sharp 
inquisitive  glance  of  a  newsboy.  John  Claud- 
ianes in  custody,  the  rest  was  easy.      He  was 


THE    DYNAMITE    EXPr.OSION  181 

ready  to  make  a  confession.  JUit  like  Editor 
Older,  he,  too,  was  sceptical.  Where  was  the 
reward?  Claiidianes  inquired.  Mr.  Older  pro- 
duced one  thousand  dollars  in  cash  and  put  it 
on  a  table  where  Claudianes  could  feast  his  eyes 
upon  it.  Then  the  prisoner  confessed  that  he 
and  his  brother,  Peter,  had  been  employed  by 
Felix  Paudevaris  to  explode  the  dynamite  at 
Gallagher's  home.  According  to  Claudianes  he 
was  paid  by  Paudevaris,  who  got  the  money 
from  Abe  Ruef,  "and,"  said  the  prisoner,  "I 
understood  that  Ruef  got  it  from  Patrick  Cal- 
houn." Thus  was  the  chain  made  complete. 
But  John  Claudianes,  if  he  really  told  this  story, 
didn't  stick  to  it.  It  should  be  explained  that 
he  was  a  singular  individual.  A  Greek,  hardly 
out  of  his  teens,  illiterate,  reared  in  the  slums, 
a  moral  pervert,  apparently  insensible  of  the 
enormity  which  he  confessed  to  having  per- 
petrated, it  was  evident  that  for  money  he  would 
do  or  say  anything.  Indeed,  during  the  first 
week  of  his  imprisonment  he  made  it  clear 
enough  that  he  was  an  absolutely  irresponsible 
person.  The  confession  he  is  said  to  have  made 
he  stoutly  denied.  An  attorney,  engaged  for  him 
by  his  relatives,  shortly  withdrew  from  the  case, 
and  at  the  time  made  this  statement  for  publica- 
tion :  "The  feel  of  a  gold  piece  in  his  palm  means 
more  to  John  Claudianes  than  the  truth,  more 
than  the  hope  of  exculpation,  more  than  any- 
thing else   on   earth.     I   am   convinced   that  he 


,y 


182  THE    REGENERATORS 

knows  something  of  the  crime,  yet  I  am  equally 
certain  that  he  had  no  part  in  the  actual  per- 
petration of  the  crime.  There  have  been  many 
reports  to  the  effect  that  he  implicated  several 
of  the  defendants  in  the  graft  cases,  but  from  all 
that  he  has  told  me  that  is  not  so.  So  far  as  his 
personal  knowledge  extends  it  does  not  implicate 
any  person  except  his  brother  Peter.  He  has 
made  no  statement  which  drags  in  the  name  of 
Ruef  or  any  other  person.  He  holds  the  record 
for  confessions.  He  made  three  complete  ones, 
to  say  nothing  of  several  piecemeal  narratives." 

A  few  months  after  the  arrest  of  John  Claud- 
ianes  his  brother  Peter  was  arrested  in  Chicago. 
The  newspapers  were  told  that  he  confessed  to 
Detective  Burns  that  he  did  the  dynamiting  at 
the  instigation  of  Felix  Paudevans.  Peter 
Claudianes  denied  that  he  made  the  confession. 
He  was  convicted  of  the  crime,  however,  and  the 
principal,  almost  the  only,  testimony  against  him 
was  that  of  Detective  Burns  who  swore  to  the 
confession  which  the  prisoner  disavowed.  John 
Claudianes  was  set  free.  There  was  no  prosecu- 
tion of  John  Claudianes.  He  had  an  attorney 
who  challenged  the  regenerators  to  appear  in 
court  and  dare  prosecute  his  client.  They  were 
more  discreet  than  daring. 

That  Peter  Claudianes  committed  the  crime 
there  is  but  little  doubt.  Nor  is  it  doubted  that 
he  was  hired  by  Felix  Paudevaris.  But  by 
whom  was  Paudevaris  hired  ?     Here  is  a  mystery 


THE    DYNAMITE    EXPLOSION  183 

that  has  never  been  solved.  There  is  no  testi- 
mony to  show  that  there  was  ever  any  connec- 
tion between  Paudevaris  and  Ruef.  The  prob- 
abiHty  is  that  Paudevaris  was  hired  by  one  of  the 
numerous  private  detectives  that  fairly  httered 
the  streets  of  San  h>ancisco.  If  found  Paudev- 
aris might  be  wilhng  to  (hsclose  the  identity  of 
his  employer,  but  the  search  for  him.  if  it  was 
ever  seriously  made,  was  discontinued  long  ago, 
though  it  was  a  matter  of  common  notoriety  that 
he  had  fled  to  a  town  in  Italy.  The  great 
American  detective,  William  J.  Burns,  never 
tried  to  capture  Paudevaris.  What  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  crime  was  we  may  never  know,  but 
that  the  purpose  was  not  to  eliminate  the  testi- 
mony of  Gallagher  it  is  not  unreasonable  to 
presume,  for  there  is  nothing  more  improbable 
than  Gallagher's  story  that  his  home  was  oc- 
cupied by  himself  and  family  at  the  time  of  the 
explosion.  If  he  had  said  that,  contrary  to  his 
usual  custom,  he  and  his  family  were  in  the  back- 
yard when  the  explosion  occurred  there  would  be 
no  reason  to  suspect  collusion  between  himself 
and  the  dynamiter,  but  such  are  the  circumstances 
that  they  rather  point  to  that  conclusion, 


^ 


IX 

THE    SHOOTING    OF    HENEY 

An  Infuriated  Ex-Convict  Revenges  Himself  on  the 

Virulent  Prosecutor  and  Commits  Suicide 

Just  as  Burns  is  About  to  Pursue  a  Clue 

When  the  work  of  impanehng-  the  jury 
for  Ruef's  second  trial  was  begun  the  news- 
papers were  still  raging  against  the  defend- 
ant as  the  instigator  of  the  dynamiting  of 
Gallagher's  home.  And  hardly  had  this  theme 
been  worn  threadbare  when  they  were  af- 
forded new  and  even  better  material  for 
the  rousing  of  resentment  and  indignation.  In 
the  midst  of  the  trial,  or  rather  during  a  lull  in 
the  proceedings,  Francis  J.  Heney  was  shot  down 
as  he  sat  in  the  crowded  courtroom,  and  for  some 
hours  all  San  Francisco  believed  his  assass- 
ination had  been  attempted  at  the  instigation 
of  the  defendant.  As  a  matter  of  fact  nothing 
worse    could    have    happened    to    the    defendant. 

The  echo  of  the  pistol  shot  had  scarcely  died 
away  when  one  of  Ruef's  attorneys,  Henry  Ach, 
turned  to  him  and  said,  "This  means  your  convic- 
tion." And  Ruef  knew.  No  man  was  more  quick 
to  catch  the  message  that  sparked  from  the  bullet 
now  lodged  in  the  muscles  of  Heney's  neck.  No 
man,  be  sure  of  it,   was   more  profoundly   ap- 


THE    SHOOTING    OF    HENEY  185 

palled  by  the  shooting  than  Abraham  Ruef.  Now 
were  the  murmurs  of  the  populace  sounding  in 
his  ear,  portending-  something  more  to  be  dreaded 
than  conviction.  Swiftly  the  startling  news  is 
spreading.  Here  is  the  grand  pretext  for  the 
press  to  kindle  the  flame  of  popular  fury  and  fan 
it  into  a  conflagration.  Nor  is  the  opportunity 
to  conjure  the  spirit  of  violence  neglected. 
Quickly  spreads  the  contagion  of  public  senti- 
ment, with  increasing  velocity  and  an  ever  deep- 
ening, ever  widening  sweep  of  momentum.  With- 
in an  hour  of  the  shooting  the  League  of  Justice 
— how  true  to  its  name ! — gets  busy,  ostensibly  to 
stem  the  torrent  of  public  indignation,  its  in- 
spired orators  assuming  all  the  while  that  Ruef 
instigated  the  shooting.  Was  there  ever  such 
Pharisaical  naivete?  And  Mayor  Taylor — al- 
ways ready  to  lend  a  hand  for  the  furtherance  of 
the  beneficent  designs  of  the  men  that  raised  him 
from  obscurity  to  crown  their  enterprises  with 
smug  respectability — alert  was  he  for  the  poten- 
tialities of  the  propitious  emergency.  With  pub- 
lic indignation  foaming  under  the  spur  he  takes 
a  hint  from  the  patriots  of  the  League  of  Jus- 
tice, and  attends  a  meeting  of  them  at  which  it 
is  decided  to  hold  a  great  public  discussion  of 
the  shooting.  A  mass-meeting  is  called  for  the 
following  evening.  It  would  have  been  less  dis- 
ingenuous to  call  it  an  indignation  meeting; 
for  though  the  desire  to  pacify  the  public  was 
afifected,   the   newspapers   of   the   morning  after 


186  THE    REGENERATORS 

the  shooting-  were  filled  with  the  rabble-rousing 
words  of  Mr.  Spreckels,  Mr.  Phelan  and  their 
several  satellites.  By  all  it  was  assumed  that 
Heney  was  the  victim  of  a  plot.  Nobody  wished 
to  make  sceptics  of  the  people.  The  avowed 
purpose  of  the  League  of  Justice  was  to  exhort 
the  people  to  be  calm ;  to  lament  of  course  that 
the  machinery  of  justice  was  broken  down,  but 
to  suggest  the  while  that  by  strenuous  efforts  it 
might  be  repaired.  Thus  was  the  mob  to  be 
pacified.  It  was  something  of  the  same  motive 
that  animated  Antony  when  he  kindled  the  flame 
of  sacred  vehemence  at  the  corse  of  Caesar.  A 
decidedly  paradoxical  proceeding  was  this  of  the 
League  of  Justice,  sanctioned  by  Mayor  Taylor ; 
if  not  disingenuous,  to  be  attributed,  then, 
to  a  most  profound  ignorance  of  psychological 
phenomena.  Fancy  rounding  up  the  rabble  when 
clamor  is  at  the  loudest,  when  it  is  blowing  a 
hurricane,  that  the  still  small  voice  of  reason 
may  be  heard  above  the  tumult !  Assuming 
that  Mayor  Taylor  was  acting  for  what  he 
conceived  to  be  the  best  interests  of  the 
community  his  conduct  viewed  in  the  perspective 
of  time  is  not  to  be  applauded  for  its  wisdom. 
True,  there  was  no  outbreak,  but  the  scene 
was  set  for  one.  There .  was  the  vast  throng, 
composed  indubitably  of  an  element  sensitive  to 
the  emotions  of  the  patriots ;  in  sympathy  with 
them ;  convinced  that  the  patriots  were  in 
sympathy  with  the  cause  of  justice.     There  they 


THE    SHOOTING    OF    HENEY  187 

were,  brought  tog^ethcr  in  a  narrow  compass, 
where  contagion  might  be  facihtated  by  contact, 
where  the  atmosphere  might  be  impregnated  with 
a  single  breath,  where  their  thoughts  could  be 
blown  back  on  themselves ;  and  there  were  the 
orators,  the  mayor,  the  district  attorney  and 
others  all  believed  to  be  fighting  a  desperate  up- 
hill fight  for  the  people  against  a  band  of  most 
unscrupulous  rascals  leagued  with  thugs,  defiant 
of  the  laws  of  God  and  men.  What  might  have 
happened  had  there  been  no  interruption  must  be 
left  to  conjecture.  What  the  tone  of  the  meet- 
ing foreboded  may  be  inferred  from  this  sig- 
nificant circumstance. — that  an  armed  body  of 
men  was  hastily  organized  for  the  protection  of 
the  Examiner  office.  The  explanation  is  that 
the  patriots  had  been  writhing  under  the  ridicule 
with  which  they  were  lashed  by  the  author  of 
the  Mutt  cartoons.  Hearst  and  the  whole  Ex- 
aminer stafiF  were  denounced  for  "poisoning  the 
public  mind."  The  Mutt  cartoons  were  the  in- 
spiration of  much  vehement  oratory  at  the  mass- 
meeting.  How  bitterly  those  cartoons  were  re- 
sented we  may  learn  from  the  report  made  by 
Mayor  Taylor's  whitewash  committee  (William 
Denman,  chairman)  which  was  made  public  about 
a  year  after  the  shooting.  "The  so-called  Mutt 
cartoons,"  says  the  report,  "sought  by  a  broad 
but  clever  ridicule  to  convey  the  impression  that 
Mr.  Heney  was  a  coarse  and  unprincipled  char- 
latan and  that  the  entire  prosecution  was  founded 


188  THE    REGENERATORS 

in  injustice  and  carried  on  to  satisfy  a  personal 
malice.  One  of  these  cartoons,  which  subse- 
quently became  notable,  depicted  him  as  a  bird 
flying  in  the  air,  about  to  be  brought  down  by  a 
fowler's  gun.  It  would  not  have  incited  any  bal- 
anced person  to  commit  violence,  but  to  a  weak 
or  inflamed  mind  it  might  have  been  suggestive ; 
though  no  doubt  it  was  not  deliberately  so  in- 
tended." 

As  we  have  said  we  can  but  speculate  as  to  what 
might  have  happened  as  a  result  of  the  mass-meet- 
ing had  there  been  no  interruption.  At  the  high- 
est pitch  of  the  mob's  emotions  there  came  a  dis- 
traction that  no  eloquence  howsoever  impassioned 
could  overcome.  It  was  the  news  that  the  man 
who  shot  Heney  had  committed  suicide  in  his 
cell  in  the  county  jail.  The  news  was  brought  to 
the  platform  by  an  Examiner  reporter,  who  found 
the  speakers  reluctant  to  make  the  announce- 
ment, which  they  did  not  make  for  some  min- 
utes, but  kept  on  haranguing  the  audience. 
Whatever  their  motive  for  withholding  the  in- 
formation they  possessed,  the  fact  is  that  as 
soon  as  it  was  given  the  people  dispersed.  There 
are  some  occurrences  that  point  to  a  conclusion 
without  the  use  of  a  syllogism.  Perhaps  it  oc- 
curred to  the  mob  that  it  was  inciedible  that  Ruef 
should  have  hired  a  man  to  assassinate  Heney 
and  also  to  commit  suicide.  Or  perhaps  it  was 
thought  that  as  the  man  had  committed  suicide 
it  might  be  worth  while  to  hear  all  the  details 


THE    SHOOTING    OF    HENEY  189 

of  the  shooting'  before  jumping'  to  conckisions. 
At  any  rate  the  people  dispersed  to  their  homes, 
and  the  next  day  they  were  better  informed  about 
what  had  occurred. 

But  let  it  not  be  supposed  that  the  pro-prosecu- 
tion press  ever  abandoned  the  theory  that  Ruef 
instigated  the  shooting  of  Heney.  That  theory 
was  too  valuable  for  the  purposes  of  the  prosecu- 
tion to  be  abandoned.  No.  from  the  moment 
that  Heney  was  shot  he  became  a  martyr  to  the 
cause  of  civic  righteousness,  and  as  such  he  was 
employed  as  an  apparition  for  dramatic  effect 
throughout  the  remainder  of  Ruef's  trial.  In 
the  circumstances  it  becomes  important  that  we 
should  know  how  justly  qualified  he  was  for  the 
role. 

Heney  was  shot  by  Morris  Haas,  a  saloon 
keeper,  who  was  accepted  as  a  juror  for  Ruef's 
first  trial,  the  one  which  resulted  in  the  disagree- 
ment of  the  jury.  Haas  had  served  a  term  in 
the  penitentiary  for  embezzlement.  More  than 
twenty  years  before  his  appearance  in  the  jury- 
box  he  was  arrested  on  complaint  of  a  firm  by 
which  he  was  employed,  for  the  embezzlement  of 
a  small  sum  of  money.  He  pleaded  guilty,  and 
received  a  light  sentence.  He  served  his  term, 
was  released  from  prison  and  restored  to  citizen- 
ship. Thenceforward,  so  far  as  anybody  knows, 
he  lived  an  honest  life.  He  married,  became  the 
father  of  several  children,  and  no  member  of  his 
family  knew  of  the  blot  upon  his  record.     The 


190  THE    REGENERATORS 

sin  of  his  young  manhood  had  long  since  ceased 
to  haunt  him.  His  neighbors  knew  him  as  a  re- 
spectable citizen,  he  had  many  friends  who  never 
dreamt  that  he  had  worn  stripes.  In  January. 
1908,  when,  in  accordance  with  law,  the  Superior 
Court  judges  of  San  Francisco  were  making  up 
the  jury  roll  for  the  year,  one  of  them  put  the 
name  of  Morris  Haas  in  his  list,  and  when 
Abraham  Ruef  came  to  trial  Morris  Haas  was 
drawn  as  a  juror.  We  are  told  that  he  was  eager 
to  get  on  the  jury.  The  whitewash  committee 
says  in  its  report  that  the  prosecution  had  in- 
formation that  Haas  intended  to  sell  his  vote  for 
Ruef's  acquittal.  This  is  not  unlikely.  The 
prosecution  had  a  vast  volume  of  information 
about  jurors,  not  all  of  it  accurate.  It  was 
gathered  by  private  detectives  who  went  about 
learning  the  sentiments  of  citizens.  When  Ruef 
was  on  trial  they  had  a  bureau  from  which  they 
sent  out  a  decoy  petition  to  have  the  graft  prose- 
cution stopped,  the  purpose  being  to  ascertain 
the  attitude  of  prospective  jurors.  By  means  of 
another  paper  they  solicited  citizens  to  join  a 
club  organized  for  the  prosecution  of  the  higher- 
ups.  They  even  went  so  far  as  to  interview 
men  summoned  as  jurors  who  had  been  exam- 
ined and  passed,  and  from  this  conduct  con- 
tempt proceedings  resulted.  Whenever  the 
prosecution  wished  to  get  rid  of  a  man  with- 
out wasting  a  challenge,  a  private  detective 
would  take  the  witness  stand  and  swear  that  the 


THE    SHOOTING    OF    HENEY  191 

man  had  made  certain  statements  to  him  con- 
ckisive  of  prejudice.  But  notwithstanding  the 
industry  and  adroitness  of  the  detectives  Haas 
was  for  a  time  acceptable  to  the  prosecution. 
The  charge  that  he  was  eager  to  get  on  the  jury 
is  hard  to  reconcile  with  the_Jact  that  he  went 
to  the  judge  on  the  bench  and  asked  to  be  ex- 
cused from  service.  Was  it  because  he  feared 
that  his  record  might  be  disclosed,  and  that  shame 
and  disgrace  would  be  brought  upon  his  family? 
He  was  certainly  hazarding  much  in  subjecting 
himself  to  the  deep  scrutiny  from  which  there 
was  no  escape  for  any  man  sworn  as  a  juror 
for  the  trial  of  Abraham  Ruef.  It  was  not  likely 
that  he  would  lull  himself  into  a  sense  of  security. 
The  newspapers  were  full  of  the  searching  in- 
vestigations that  were  being  made  from  day  to 
day.  Haas  must  have  felt  that  the  resurrection 
of  his  past  would  be  the  inevitable  consequence 
of  his  appearance  in  the  jury-box. 

From  the  record  of  Haas's  examination  as  to 
his  qualifications  to  serve  as  a  juror  it  appears 
that  he  answered  all  questions  satisfactorily. 
At  all  events  he  said  nothing  indicative  of 
bias  or  prejudice.  A  middle-aged  German,  un- 
sophisticated in  appearance  and  manner,  there 
appeared  to  be  nothing  objectionable  to  him,  and 
so  far  as  anybody  knew  there  was  nothing 
objectionable  unless  it  was  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  prosecution,  inasmuch  as  Haas 
was    a    Jew.      Ruef    being    a    Jew,     and    the 


X 


192  THE    REGENERATORS 

two  rabbis,  Dr.  Nieto  and  Dr.  Kaplan  hav- 
ing been  involved  in  the  controversy  over 
the  immunity  contract,  it  became  the  policy  of 
the  prosecution  to  exclude  Jews  from  the  jury- 
box.  Perhaps  for  that  reason  it  was  considered 
desirable  to  get  rid  of  Haas,  and  perhaps  for 
that  reason  the  investigation  was  made  which  re- 
sulted in  the  discovery  that  Haas  was  an  ex- 
convict.  At  any  rate  his  past  was  uncovered,  and 
one  day  it  was  made  public  in  a  manner  cal- 
culated to  startle  and  disconcert  the  defendant 
and  his  counsel ;  also  to  warrant  the  pro-prosecu- 
tion press  in  emitting  some  fresh  shrieks. 

The  unveiling  of  the  ex-convict's  past  was  a 
matter  of  studied  effect  and  no  little  craftsman- 
manship.  Whenever  Heney  had  a  telling  cir- 
cumstance to  present  he  was  partial  to  the  tableau 
form.  Nothing  worth  while  was  ever  permitted 
to  touch  the  level  of  the  commonplace.  Just  be- 
fore the  climax  there  was  much  action  that 
seemed  to  denote  that  shortly  there  was  to  be 
something  in  the  nature  of  a  denouement.  Ru- 
dolph Spreckels  came  into  court,  looking  wise. 
He  held  a  whispered  consultation  with  Burns. 
The  detective  hurriedly  approached  Heney. 
More  whispering,  and  many  glances  toward  the 
jury-box.  Then  up  rose  the  prosecutor. 
Taking  a  photograph  from  his  pocket,  he 
walked  up  to  the  jury-box  and  glared  at  Haas. 
Exhibiting  the  photograph  to  the  juror  he 
asked  him  if  he  recognized  it.     It  was  the  photo- 


THE    SHOOTING    OF    HENEY  193 

graph  of  Haas  in  stripes,  taken  when  the  juror 
was  in  the  penitentiary.  The  unfortunate  wretch 
was  for  a  moment  (hmifounded,  transfixed. 
Heney  smiled  and  repeated  his  question.  Trem- 
bhng  in  every  fibre,  his  eyes  filled  with  terror 
and  dismay,  Haas  staggered  to  his  feet,  and  in 
a  voice  broken  with  sobs  he  pleaded  like  one  in 
the  depths  of  agony  to  be  spared  from  shame. 

Heney's  face  wore  a  cynical  smile.  "Didn't  you 
serve  a  term  in  the  penitentiary?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,   Mr.   Heney,"  the  cowering  wretch   ex- 
claimed, "if  you  only  knew  about  the  penitentiary , 
you  wouldn't  be  so  harsh.     I  asked  the  court  to    ^j 
excuse  me,  and  he  wouldn't." 

Judge  Lawlor  heard  this  statement  and  ut- 
tered no  word  of  contradiction.  Nor  did 
Heney  challenge  the  assertion ;  yet  his  tone 
and  manner  plainly  denoted  that  there  was 
not  the  slightest  reason  to  doubt  that  Haas  had 
tried 'to  get  on  the  jury,  and  that  he  was  in  the 
jury-box  for  an  improper  purpose.  No  evidence 
did  he  introduce  to  prove  that  such  was  the  case. 
If  he  had  any  information  regarding  Haas's  pur- 
pose he  never  made  it  public.  No  information 
of  that  nature  has  ever  been  made  public.  But 
there  in  the  official  record  is  Haas's  statement 
that  he  tried  to  evade  service,  that  he  importuned 
the  judge  of  the  court  to  excuse  him  from 
service.  Nothing  more  was  said  on  the  subject 
that  fatal  day.  In  his  panic  terror  Haas  ram- 
bled on  incoherently.    His  remarks  plainly  showed 


194  THE    REGENERATORS 

that  his  mind  was  preoccupied  with  the  shame 
of  his  past,  the  humihation  of  the  present ;  that 
he  had  no  thought  of  the  issue  of  the  moment. 

"I  was  vin(hcated  on  that  charge,"'  he  ex- 
claimed. 

"I  don't  care  anything  about  that,"  said  Heney. 

Of  course  he  didn't  care  about  it.  All  that  he 
cared  about,  presumably,  was  the  effect  of  what 
the  public  would  regard  as  the  trapping  of  a 
scoundrel  who  had  been  employed  to  hang  a 
jury.  Perhaps  the  wincing  of  the  man  in  the 
box  was  balm  to  his  soul. 

"Well,"  Haas  went  on,  "the  man  who  brought 
that  trouble  to  me — I  never  had  no  trial.  I  am 
willing  to  be  tried  now  and  prove  my  innocence — 
but  the  man  that  brought  on  that  trouble  he 
jumped  out  of  a  four-story  window."  This 
speech  Heney  ignored,  but  went  on  with  his 
questions  till  interrupted  by  counsel  for  the  de- 
fendant who  interposed  in  behalf  of  the  juror, 
saying  that  it  was  unnecessary  to  pursue  so  pain- 
ful an  examination.  They  would  allow  the  chal- 
lenge. But  Heney  wasn't  satisfied.  He  was 
eager  to  make  it  appear  that  Haas  was  a  tool 
of  the  defendant.  Not  till  the  incident  had 
yielded  sufficient  material  for  the  newspapers  did 
Heney  desist,  and  then  Haas  with  bowed  head 
staggered  out  of  the  courtroom. 

This  incident  furnished  the  pro-prosecution 
press  with  much  material  for  telling  comment. 
The  newspapers  took  it  for  granted,  to  be  sure, 


THE    SHOOTING    OF    HENP:y  195 

that  the  ex-convict  had  been  hired  by  Ruef  to  ^ 
serve  as  a  juror  and  vote  for  acquittal.  Not  to 
the  newspapers  did  it  matter  that  they  had  noth- 
ing but  gratuitous  assertion  on  which  to  base 
their  imputation.  True,  there  had  been  rumors 
of  jury-bribing,  and  there  had  been  arrests  for 
jury-bribing,  and  certainly  Ruef  was  not  a  man 
to  scruple  at  jury-bribing,  but  it  is  indisputable 
that  the  prosecution  set  the  pace  in  the  business 
of  tampering  with  talesmen,  and  it  will  certainly 
do  nobody  injustice  to  assert  that  most  of 
the  noise  that  was  made  about  jury-bribing  was 
artfully  created  chiefly  for  the  one  purpose 
of  inspiring  jurors  who  might  be  inclined  to 
vote  for  acquittal  with  dread  of  being  sus- 
pected of  having  sold  themselves.  The  noise 
was  incessant ;  men  were  arrested  for  jury-brib- 
ing, and  they  were  prosecuted,  and  they  were  ac- 
quitted. In  the  Call  of  October  30,  1908,  the 
subject  was  thus  discussed  by  District  At- 
torney Langdon :  "The  prosecution  has  been  in 
possession  of  evidence  to  show  that  for  many 
months  a  wholesale  system  of  jury-bribing  has 
been  going  on  in  these  graft  cases."  That  state- 1 
ment  served  its  purpose.  It  gave  color  to  in- 
sinuation and  rumor.  The  evidence  which  Mr. 
Langdon  said  he  had  in  his  possession  was  never 
produced.  The  statement  is  characteristic  of  the 
ways  of  the  prosecution.  It  was  thus  that  the 
business  was  managed  out  of  court ;  thus  that 
the  public  was  prepared  for  failure  in  court  and 


i.j  THE    REGENERATORS 

rendered  susceptible  to  whatever  suggestion  was 
deemed  expedient  for  the  moment.  And  conse- 
quently when  the  discovery  was  made  that  an 
ex-convict  had  been  sworn  as  a  juror  the  poten- 
tiaHties  of  the  situation  must  have  excited  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  prosecutors.  Here  was  the 
chance  to  illustrate  by  example,  to  point  out  a 
specimen  of  criminal  handiwork,  so  it  was  not 
neglected.  Yet  there  is  not  an  iota  of  testimony 
anywhere,  not  even  of  the  hearsay,  variety,  to 
show  that  Francis  J.  Heney  exposed  the  brand 
of  infamy  on  Haas  for  any  other  purpose  than 
that  of  exciting  prejudice  against  the  defendant. 
But  there  is  testimony,  there  is  a  flaming  record, 
to  show  that  in  the  very  case  in  which  Haas  ap- 
peared, the  prosecution  tried  their  utmost  to  have 
accepted  on  the  jury  a  man  whom  they  believed 
to  be  so  strongly  prejudiced  against  the  defend- 
ant, so  ardently  in  sympathy  with  the  prosecu- 
tion, that  with  him  in  the  box  acquittal  would  be 
impossible. 


Haas,  as  we  have  said,  staggered  out  of  the 
courtroom  with  bowed  head.  He  vanished.  For 
a  brief  space  he  lived  unnoticed,  unremembered. 
The  trial  went  on.  the  jury  disagreed.  Two 
months  later  Ruef  is  again  on  trial.  This  time 
for  bribing  a  supervisor  to  vote  for  the  trolley 
franchise.  About  four  o'clock  on  the  after- 
noon of  November  13,  1908,  a  recess  was  taken. 


THE    SHOOTING    OF    HENEY  197 

Judge  Lawlor  went  into  his  chambers,  the 
jury  into  an  adjoining  room,  Ruef  and  his 
attorneys  into  a  corridor.  Heney  remained 
seated  at  a  table,  the  spectators  held  their 
places.  Suddenly,  hurriedly,  a  man  rose  from 
a  chair  a  short  distance  from  where  Heney  was 
sitting,  drew  a  pistol,  fired.  Heney  fell  to  the 
floor  with  a  bullet  in  his  neck.  His  assailant, 
quickly  seized  by  officers  of  the  court,  was 
thrown  to  the  floor  and  manacled.  He  was  rec- 
ognized as  Morris  Haas,  the  ex-convict.  With- 
in twenty  minutes  after  the  shooting,  Haas  still 
lying  on  the  floor,  was  questioned  by  William  J. 
Burns  and  a  police  captain.  Questions  and  an- 
swers- were  taken  down  by  a  stenographer.  The 
detective's  c[uestions  were  designed  to  draw  from 
the  prisoner  a  confession  that  he  had  been  hired 
to  do  the  shooting,  but  there  is  not  a  single  an- 
swer to  give  the  slightest  color  to  such  a  theory. 
The  prisoner's  first  words  were :  *T  would  be 
ashamed  if  I  hadn't  done  it.  Yet  I  have  lots  to 
live  for.  I  have  a  wife  and  four  children.  But 
I'd  change  places  with  Heney  right  now.  Oh! 
the  life  I've  lived  since  Heney  denounced  me  in 
open  court."  Burns  interrupted  with  questions 
as  to  where  he  had  been,  and  to  whom  he  had 
talked,  etc.,  but  Haas,  hysterical  and  incoherent, 
could  hardly  be  dissuaded  from  talking  about 
anything  but  the  crime  for  which  he  had  been 
sent  to  the  penitentiary. 

"There  is  no  use  of  going  over  that  stufif," 


198  THE    REGENERATORS 

said  Burns ;  "come  down  to  reason — what  was 
your  reason  for  shooting  Mr.  Heney?" 

"I  shot  him  for  humanity's  sake,"  was  the 
reply. 

"Why  didn't  you  shoot  Ruef  for  humanity's 
sake?" 

"Because  he  didn't  denounce  me  that  day. 
Don't  forget,  Mr.  Burns,  I  got  married  seventeen 
years  ago  and  raised  a  family  of  four  children. 
Now  look  at  what  they've  suffered.  My  boy 
was  so  proud  when  my  name  first  appeared  in 
the  papers.  He  said,  'Why  papa,  your  name  is 
in  the  paper — '  " 

"Whom  did  you  have  a  talk  with  about  the 
matter  before  you  came  to  shoot  Mr.  Heney?" 

"Oh,  not  a  soul.  I  kept  it  to  myself.  I  talked 
to  myself  all  the  time.  I  wish,  Mr.  Burns,  they 
would  shoot  me.  What  do  I  care.  I  don't  care 
a  scrap." 

Further  questioning  elicited  the  information 
that  immediately  after  the  exposure  of  him  in 
court  Haas  closed  his  saloon,  paid  no  more  at- 
tention to  business,  and  thereafter  wandered 
about  the  nickelodeons.  "They're  dark,"  he  ex- 
plained, "and  I  used  to  hide  myself  in  them." 
What  a  world  of  pain  and  torture  was  imaged  in 
this  confession  wrung  from  an  anguished  fugitive 
soul !  But  the  stern  righteous  detective,  the  un- 
emotional, inexorable  Javert,  intent  upon  getting 
to  the  bottom  of  what  he  conceived  to  be  an 
atrocious  plot,  experienced  no  twinge  of  pity. 


THE    SHOOTING    OF    HENEY  199 

"Why  didn't  you  shoot  Ruef  instead  of 
Heney?"  he  demanded. 

The  prostrate  man,  apparently  insensible  of 
the  question,  was  now  muttering  to  himself: 
"Oh!  if  Heney  hadn't  brought  that  picture.  He 
showed  my  picture  in  stripes.  I  couldn't  say  a 
word." 

From  the  detective's  standpoint  the  inquiry 
was  unproductive.  It  was  brought  to  a  close. 
Haas  was  sent  to  the  county  jail,  and  Ruef,  who 
was  then  out  on  bonds,  was  locked  up  there  also, 
as  it  was  feared  that  his  life  was  in  danger. 
"Ruef,"  said  the  Chronicle  the  morning  after  the 
shooting,  "is  at  the  county  jail  by  special  order 
of  Judge  Lawlor.  The  whole  city  being  horri- 
fied at  the  cold-blooded  shooting  of  a  public  of- 
ficial this  measure  was  necessary,  not  only  to 
prevent  any  possible  move  on  the  part  of  the 
defendant,  but  for  Ruef's  own  protection  in  the 
present  excited  state  of  the  public  mind."  And 
.it  was  in  this  excited  state  of  the  public  mind  that 
the  patriots  of  the  League  of  Justice  got  to- 
gether, and  called  a  mass-meeting.  What  moved 
them  we  learn  from  the  veracious  Call,  personal 
property  of  the  Spreckels  family :  "Imbued  with 
an  intensity  of  feeling  born  of  the  crime  that  dyed 
scarlet  the  court  of  justice  where  Francis  J. 
Heney  pleaded  the  cause  of  the  people,  two  hun- 
dred members  of  the  Citizens  League  of  Justice 
gathered  last  night  in  the  Pacific  Building,  and 
after  listening  to  stirring  addresses  called  upon 


200  THE    REGENERATORS 

the  public  to  pledge  its  aid  to  the  cause  of  justice. 
The  meeting  was  hurriedly  called,  but  the  re- 
sponse was  a  deep  toned  note  of  determination." 
Conspicuous  among  those  present,  as  may  also 
be  learned  from  the  Call,  were  Father  Crowley, 
William  Kent  and  Will  French,  all  of  the  im- 
partial whitewash  committee ;  also,  Hiram  John- 
son, now  Governor  of  California,  Fred  Sanborn 
of  the  Oliver  grand  jury,  now  a  job-holder  of 
the  Johnson  administration,  Walter  MacArthur, 
labor  agitator,  Richard  Cornelius,  president  of 
the  Carmen's  Union,  the  man  that  precipitated 
the  strike  against  the  United  Railroads,  and 
Mayor  Taylor.  The  Call  said  that  while  all  the 
speakers  "counseled  moderation  the  bitterest  re- 
sentment was  expressed  in  the  strongest  possible 
language  of  the  methods  of  the  enemies  of  the 
prosecution."  Among  the  speakers  who  coun- 
seled moderation  was  Richard  Cornelius,  who 
said,  according  to  the  Call,  "I  think  the  time  has 
come  when  there  should  be  a  vigilance  commit-, 
tee  to  deal  with  criminals  in  this  city.  I  am 
ready  to  join  such  a  committee."  And  the  good 
mayor  was  quoted  in  these  words:  "No  one  can 
tell  who  or  what  is  back  of  this  horrible  deed." 
Assuredly  no  one  could  tell.  Nor  was  there 
any  reason  for  suspecting  that  there  was  behind 
it  anybody  but  the  maddened,  infuriated  wretch 
by  whom  it  was  perpetrated.  Indeed  it  may 
well  be  doubted  that  the  patriots  entertained  the 
suspicion  which  they  industriously  disseminated 


THE    SHOOTING    OF    HENEY  201 

whilst  pretending  to  be  averse  to  inflaming  the 
multitude.  It  was  manifestly  not  to  the  interest) 
of  Ruef  or  the  higher-ups  to  cause  the  assassina- 1 
tion  of  Heney.  On  the  contrary  it  was  to  their  \ 
interest  to  keep  him  alive.  He  wasn't  convicting 
anybody.  His  arrogant  and  brutal  conduct  had 
disgusted  the  whole  community.  His  manner 
was~o]ffens:ve  to  juries,  and  it  seemed  Impossible 
for  him  to  try  a  case  without  blundering  fatally. 
Why  should  the  defendants  turn  public  sentiment 
against  themselves  by  making  of  the  impotent 
Heney  a  martyr  to  the  cause  of  civic  righteous- 
ness? In  all  California  there  were  no  men  who 
ought  to  have  been  more  eager  to  preserve  Heney 
from  harm  than  the  defendants  in  the  graft 
cases.  The  patriots  may  have  had  a  different 
conception  of  the  matter.  And  they  may  have 
had  no  desire  to  incite  the  passions  of  the  mob, 
but  if  so  their  tone  and  sentiments  were  far 
from  felicitous.  Not  one  of  them  failed  to  as- 
sume that  Heney  was  shot  because  he  was  prose- 
cuting bad  men.  Even  Mayor  Taylor,  who  didn't 
know  what  was  back  of  the  "horrible  deed,"  em- 
braced this  hypothesis,  as  may  be  seen  from  an 
address  which  he  issued  to  the  people  and 
caused  to  be  published  in  all  the  papers  in 
advance  of  the  mass-meeting.  'Tt  is  no  wonder," 
he  said,  "that  the  public  is  wrought  up.  The 
people  would  not  be  the  good  citizens  they  ought 
to  be  unless  they  were  wrought  up."  And  he 
added :  "Of  course  the  whole  community  with 


202  THE    REGENERATORS 

but  few  exceptions  will  now  be  behind  the  prose- 
cution." Thus  we  hear  it  again, — the  ever-re- 
curring- refrain  addressed  to  the  ears  of  the  mul- 
titude :  "Come,  be  good  fellows,  get  behind  the 
prosecution."  And  still  the  patriots  were  in  con- 
trol of  the  whole  machinery  of  government;  not 
only  that,  they  had  their  League  of  Justice,  their 
Woman's  Heney  League,  their  perspiring  preach- 
ers, their  newspaper  organs  and  no  small  propor- 
tion of  public  sentiment.  But  they  never  quit 
begging  for  more ;  nor  for  a  moment  did  they 
cease  fulminating  against  the  "poisoners  of  pub- 
lic opinion,"  as  they  described  their  critics. 

In  the  same  issue  of  the  Call  in  which  the 
mayor's  address  is  printed  we  find,  "Burns  says 
murder  plot  was  surely  planned  by  others."  And 
in  the  Examiner  of  the  same  day  Burns  is  quoted 
thus :  "From  my  investigation,  and  what  I  know, 
I  think  the  whole  thing  leads  up  to  Ruef."  What 
Burns  knew  has  never  been  divulged  so  far  as 
it  is  possible  to  ascertain.  Yet  he  may  have 
communicated  with  Theodore  Roosevelt,  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  for  that  gentleman 
appeared  to  know,  though  far  away  in  Washing- 
ton, D.  C.  While  the  movement  to  assuage  the 
feelings  of  the  people  was  on,  the  amiable  and 
timely  President  uttered  himself  somewhere  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  psychological  moment. 
From  him  came  a  telegram  addressed  to  Rudolph 
Spreckels,  indicating  that  either  he  had  received 
important  information  or  that  his  clairvoyant  per- 


THE    SHOOTING    OF    HENEY  203 

ceptive  faculties  had  been  at  work.  The  follow- 
ing is  an  excerpt :  "The  infamous  character  of  the 
would-be  assassin,  no  less  than  the  infamous 
character  of  the  deed,  call  attention  in  a  striking 
way  to  the  true  character  of  the  forces  against 
which  Heney  and  you  and  your  associates  have 
been  struggling."  And  to  the  peaceful  voice  of 
Mr.  Roosevelt  were  added  the  clarion  tones  of 
the  Call,  demanding  to  know,  "Will  they  stop  at 
nothing?  Are  not  stealing,  perjury,  bribery, 
dynamiting,  murder,  enough !"  In  the  evening, 
just  before  the  people  assembled  in  mass-meet- 
ing, the  Bulletin  expressed  its  desire  for 
peace  and  quiet  in  this  contribution  to  the 
literature  of  the  passing  show :  "The  public  will 
not  be  easily  convinced  that  a  man  who  would 
hire  a  murderer  to  kill  Gallagher  would  be  too 
scrupulous  to  hire  or  procure  a  murderer  to  kill 
Heney."  Likewise  the  Evening  News :  "Not 
since  the  days  the  Vigilantes  strangled  the  thugs 
who  held  the  city  by  the  throat,  in  the  gold  min- 
ing days,  have  the  law-abiding  citizens  been  so 
horrified."  And  to  quell  more  effectually  the 
spirit  of  turbulence  the  Bulletin,  deeming  it  again 
the  psychological  moment  for  an  anonymous  let- 
ter, printed  one  said  to  have  been  found  among 
some  unopened  letters  on  Mr.  Heney's  desk. 
This  is  the  letter : 

Dear  Sir:  Have  Detective  Burns  look  carefully 
into  and  after  A.  Ruef.  Be  on  your  guard  and 
await  more  startling  developments.  I  know  where- 
of   I    speak. 

— A  Friend. 


204  THE    REGENERATORS 

Doubtless  this  letter  was  found  by  the  argus- 
eyed  Burns,  but  on  whose  authority  it  was 
opened  the  Bulletin  did  not  say ;  indubitably  not 
on  Heney's,  as  Heney  was  then  in  the  hospital 
waiting  to  be  operated  upon.  The  detective 
probably  divined  the  contents,  and  therefore  felt 
no  compunction  against  opening  it.  At  any  rate, 
that  he  was  sure  it  was  something  deserving  of 
his  attention,  may  be  inferred  from  the  following 
quoted  from  the  Bulletin:  "Burns  says  it  has 
every  sign  of  genuineness.  It  is  significant.  It 
is  a  clew.''  Never  since  has  anything  been 
heard  of  that  letter.  The  clew  was  abandoned 
almost  as  soon  as  it  was  found.  The  explana- 
tion probably  is  that  as  on  the  evening  of  the  day 
on  which  it  was  found  Haas  committed  suicide  in 
his  cell  in  the  county  jail,  immediately  it  be- 
came expedient  for  Burns  and  his  associates  to 
propagate  a  new  theory  in  order  to  keep  alive 
the  flame  they  had  been  fanning.  This 
theory  was  that  Haas  had  been  killed  by  the 
higher-ups.  But  it  was  soon  observed  that  this 
theory  was  not  winning  credence. 

At  the  time  of  the  tragedy  in  the  jail  there 
were  two  policemen  outside  the  cell  door.  They 
had  been  stationed  there  by  Chief  Biggy,  the 
ex-elisor  of  the  prosecution.  And  Biggy  him- 
self was  in  the  jail  when  the  tragedy  occurred. 
But  a  few  minutes  before  he  was  in  the  cell  talk- 
ing with  Haas.  In  the  circumstances  it  was  not 
to   be   believed   that    Haas   had   been   murdered. 


THE    SHOOTING    OF    HENEY  205 

It  was  more  likely  that  he  comniitted  suicide. 
But  where  did  he  get  the  derringer  with  which 
the  deed  was  done?  Ah,  the  conclusion  was  in- 
evitable. The  derring-er  must  have  been  smug- 
gled into  the  jail  by  an  agent  of  the  higher-ups. 
So  Burns  surmised.  It  would  never  do  to  pre- 
sume that  the  prisoner  had  the  weapon  on  his 
person  all  the  time  of  his  imprisonment,  for  it 
was  by  Bums  himself  that  Haas  had  been 
searched.  Perish  the  thought  that  this  renowned 
policeman  had  failed  in  so  important  a  case  to 
make  a  thorough  search !  Yet  nobody  ever  saw 
Haas's  shoes  removed  in  Burns's  presence.  Nor 
has  Burns  ever  said  that  he  examined  Haas's 
shoes. 

While  conjecture  was  rife  Burns  conceived  a 
new  theory.  As  Mrs.  Haas,  the  mother  of  the 
dead  man's  four  children,  had  visited  him  at 
the  jail,  perhaps,  suggested  Burns,  she  supplied 
her  husband  with  the  weapon  that  put  an  end  to 
his  miserable  life.  This  certainly  was  the  mean- 
est, most  cruel  of  all  the  surmises  expressed 
in  the  excitement  of  the  moment.  Poor,  forlorn 
woman !  Even  she  in  all  her  bitter  sorrow 
could  not  escape  the  imputation  of  being  the 
agent  of  assassins.  And  such  was  the  brutality 
of  sentiment  and  feeling  in  those  days  that  of 
this  wretched  woman,  whose  affliction  ordinarily 
would  have  stirred  the  melting  passions  of 
humanity  and  commiseration,  not  a  kind,  sym- 
pathetic   word    was    spoken    in   any    newspaper. 


206  THE    REGENERATORS 

There  was  pity  for  none  but  Heney,  the  martyr, 
with  a  bullet  lodged  in  the  soft  tissues  of  his 
neck,  suffering-  from  what  was  little  more  than 
a  superficial  wound,  but  which  was  represented 
to  be  of  the  most  vital  character.  For  the 
man  whose  wound  no  water  could  cleanse  save 
Lethe's  stream,  whose  body  was  now  in  the 
morgue,  there  was  nothing  but  contumely  and 
denunciation.  And  for  the  widowed  mother  of 
his  children  there  was  naught  but  the  suspicion 
that  her  hand  was  dyed  in  his  blood.  But  the 
suspicion  did  not  endure.  The  policemen  who 
entered  Haas's  cell  immediately  after  the  shoot- 
ing, and  who  examined  the  body,  had  found  the 
bottom  of  one  of  the  legs  of  Haas's  trousers 
turned  up  above  the  top  of  his  elastic  gaiter, 
and  when  the  body  was  stripped  it  was  found 
that  the  ankle  was  bruised.  It  was  therefore  a 
plausible  theory  that  Haas  had  had  the  derringer 
concealed  in  his  shoe,  and  this  was  demonstrated 
to  be  quite  feasible,  much  to  the  disquietude  of 
Detective  Burns. 

All  that  was  subsequently  learned  regarding 
Haas  was  what  was  told  by  Mrs.  Miriam  Cohn, 
who  had  known  him  many  years,  and  in  whom 
he  confided,  she  having  known  of  his  charred 
past.  To  her  he  went  when  summoned  for  jury 
duty  in  the  Ruef  case,  to  be  advised  as  to  how 
he  might  escape  service,  saying  that  he  feared 
exposure.  Again  to  her  he  went  when  burning 
with   shame  and  bowed  with  grief.     According 


THE    SHOOTING    OF    HENEY  207 

to  her  testimony  he  was  beliaving  Hke  a  madman, 
and  he  talked  of  killing-  his  family  and  himself. 
He  said  that  one  night  when  his  wife  and 
children  were  asleep  he  was  on  the  point  of  kill- 
ing them  all,  when  Mrs.  Haas  awoke.  His  nerve 
failed  him.  In  such  a  frame  of  mind  how  com- 
monplace the  mad  impulse  that  seized  him,  the 
blind  passion  for  revenge !  A  man  bereft  of 
reason  was  Haas,  incapable  of  realizing  that  the 
last  shot  fired,  the  fatal  shot,  was  the  one  by 
which  he  avenged  himself. 


X 

THE    BIGGY    MYSTERY 

Hounded  by  the  Regenerators  the  Chief  of  Police 
Conies  to  a  Tragic  End 

The  shooting  of  Heney  and  the  suicide  of 
Haas  were  not  the  only  stirring  events  that 
diverted  attention  from  the  Ruef  trial.  Still  an- 
other tragic  event  marked  the  progress  of  the 
civic  drama.  Chief  of  Police  William  J.  Biggy 
went  to  his  death  in  the  waters  of  San  Francisco 
Bay,  and  to  this  day  the  mystery  of  his  taking 
off  is  unsolved.  The  death  of  Biggy  gave  the 
regenerators  the  most  severe  shock  they  had  yet 
experienced.  For  the  first  time  they  knew  what 
it  was  to  be  suspected  of  the  kind  of  foul  play 
which  they  had  so  often  imputed  to  their  ad- 
versaries. The  Biggy  tragedy  followed  on  the 
heels  of  the  Haas  tragedy,  and  may  rightly  be 
regarded  as  the  sequence  of  it,  whatever  may 
have  been  the  nature  of  the  fatality. 

As  a  result  of  the  Haas  tragedy  the  regen- 
erators demanded  that  Biggy  be  removed  from 
office.  Detective  Burns,  seeking  to  exculpate 
himself  at  the  expense  of  Biggy,  threw  all  the 
blame  for  Haas's  death  on  the  chief  of  police. 
He  would  have  the  people  believe  that  it  was 
through    the    chief's    negligence    that    somebody 


THE    BIGGY    MYSTERY  209 

had  contrived  to  give  Haas  the  derringer  with 
which  he  killed  himself.  All  the  reg-enerators,  of 
course,  were  in  sympathy  with  Burns.  Such  was 
their  natural  tendency,  and  this  tendency  was 
strengthened  by  the  circumstance  that  Biggy  had 
fallen  into  disfavor.  Made  chief  of  police  by 
the  regenerators,  Biggy  found  that  he  was  ex- 
pected to  act  as  Burns's  subordinate.  Burns 
presumed  to  dictate  the  policy  of  the  police  de- 
partment, to  employ  it  for  the  political  purposes 
of  the  regenerators,  and  also,  (according  to 
Biggy)  for  his  private  ends.  But  Biggy  being  a 
man  of  some  independence  of  character  resented 
the  detective's  obtnisiveness.  The  appearance 
of  being  dominated  by  the  detective  was  galling 
to  him. 

Early  in  his  political  career  Biggy  served  a  term 
in  the  State  senate,  where  he  made  a  record  as 
a  reformer  for  the  most  scrupulous  honesty.  Of 
that  record  he  was  extremely  proud.  And  so, 
though  as  an  elisor,  in  an  atmosphere  of  passion- 
ate reform,  during  all  the  time  the  regenerators 
were  regarded  as  sacrosanct  and  the  people  were 
clamoring  for  the  punishment  of  self-confessed 
grafters  he  was  in  ardent  sympathy  with  all  the 
purposes  of  the  prosecution,  as  chief  of  police 
he  became  sensitive  to  the  respCnsibilities  of  his 
office  and  scorned  to  play  the  part  of  puppet. 
Still  in  sympathy  with  the  prosecution,  ready 
to  aid  his  friends  in  every  legitimate  way,  yet 
he  revolted  at  the  demands  of  Burns,  and  the 


210  THE    REGENERATORS 

two  men  fell  out.  At  first  there  was  no  per- 
ceptible breach.  Up  to  the  time  of  the  shooting 
of  Heney  Biggy  remained  on  friendly  terms 
with  Joseph  Dwyer  and  other  representatives  of 
the  prosecution.  But  immediately  after  the 
shooting,  permitting  himself  to  be  interviewed 
by  reporters,  he  enraged  the  regenerators  by 
pooh-poohing  the  idea  that  there  had  been  any 
conspiracy  to  kill  Heney.  He  regarded  that  idea 
as  preposterous.  The  renegerators  pronounced 
him  a  fool.  Then  came  the  suicide  of  Haas. 
And  Biggy  again  incensed  the  regenerators.  He 
knew  that  nobody  had  had  an  opportunity  of 
putting  the  derringer  into  Haas's  hands  after  he 
reached  the  jail.  It  was  plain  enough  to  him 
that  Haas  had  not  been  thoroughly  searched ; 
and  for  Captain  Duke's  complicity  in  that 
blunder  the  chief  preferred  a  charge  of  neg- 
ligence against  him,  and  the  captain  was  censured 
by  the  police  commission.  Biggy  publicly  as- 
serted that  it  was  clear  that  Haas  had  had  the 
derringer,  concealed  in  his  shoe.  This  was  too 
much  for  the  regenerators.  They  demanded 
Biggy's  removal.  They  demanded  it  in  shrieks 
and  yelps.  They  attacked  Biggy  with  the  same 
blind  fury  with  which  they  had  been  assailing 
the  higher-ups.  Their  newspapers  entered  upon 
a  systematic  course  of  abuse.  To  convey  an 
idea  of  their  tone  and  temper  it  will  suffice  to 
quote  from  one  of  many  editorials  that  appeared 
in  the  Call,  one  that  was  printed  on  November 


THE    BIGGY    MYSTERY  211 

18,  1908,  four  clays  after  Haas's  suicide: 
"Hourly  public  indignation  rises  against  the 
chief    of    police ;     hourly     the     public     demand 

for     his     removal     is  strengthened 

The  public  peace  is  not  safe  in  his  incompetent 
hands.  He  is  unfit  to  be  chief  of  any  public 
department.  Biggy  is  a  blowhard.  Biggy  is 
chicken  hearted  and  chicken  witted.  Biggy  has 
no  shame.  Biggy  has  no  honor  either  in  his 
public  or  his  private  relations.  Nobody  respects 
him.  Not  even  Biggy."  This  specimen  of 
Eatanswill  Gazette  journalism  is  amusing  in  the 
blissful  unconsciousness  that  it  exhibits ;  for  be 
it  remembered  the  men  that  inspired  the  fore- 
going were  men  who  formerly  had  such  great 
faith  in  Biggy's  courage,  ability  and  integrity 
that  they  had  him  appointed  elisor  and  also  chief 
of  police. 

Of  course  public  indignation  was  not  rising 
against  Biggy,  though  not  unlikely  the  regen- 
erators believed  that  it  was.  As  they  seemed  at 
all  times  to  be  obsessed  with  the  notion  that 
their  own  emotions  were  infectious,  they  may 
have  thought  that  their  indignation  had  seized 
upon  the  whole  community.  It  certainly  spread 
to  the  League  of  Justice,  but  that  was  what  even 
the  regenerators  might  have  expected.  The 
League  of  Justice  went  quickly  into  solemn  con- 
clave to  "resolute"  against  Biggy,  to  demand  that 
the  mayor  cast  him  into  the  outer  darkness. 
And  the  Bulletin,  its  indignation  always  on  tap, 


212  THE    REGENERATORS 

railed  against  Biggy  in  its  customary  fishwife 
vehemence.  The  Bulletin  charged  Biggy  with 
having  turned  the  police  department  over  to  the 
higher-ups.  Spreckels.  Langdon  and  Burns  held 
meetings  to  denounce  Biggy.  Singularly  enough 
Mayor  Taylor  and  the  police  commissioners  were 
not  affected  by  all  these  manifestations  of  hos- 
tility. For  the  first  time  Mayor  Taylor  showed 
signs  of  dissenting  from  the  Graft  Prosecution. 
The  importunities  of  the  frantic  regenerators 
were  becoming  a  little  too  unreasonable  even  for 
him.  He  had  faith  in  Biggy.  He  was  not  to 
be  moved.  Perhaps  Biggy  had  told  him  a  thing 
or  two  that  opened  his  eyes.  The  thought  is 
justified  by  subsequent  events. 

When  the  regenerators  found  the  mayor  dis- 
inclined to  yield  to  their  impassioned  demands 
they  neglected  to  charge  him,  too,  with  having  sold 
out  to  the  higher-ups,  but  they  became  all  the 
more  abusive  of  Biggy.  It  was  as  though  they 
had  resolved  to  cover  him  all  over  with  infamy. 
From  day  to  day  he  figured  in  lampoons  and 
cartoons.  The  Bulletin  and  Call  discussed  his 
domestic  troubles.  They  intimated  that  he  was 
haunting  houses  of  ill  repute.  Somebody  in- 
duced his  wife,  from  whom  he  was  separated, 
to  go  to  his  office  and  create  a  scene,  which 
furnished  his  enemies  with  material  for  offensive 
discussion. 

The  suicide  of  Haas  occurred  on  the  evening 
of  November  14.  1908.     From  that  time  till  the 


THE    BIGGY    MYSTERY  213 

night  of  November  30  Biggy  was  hounded  in- 
cessantly by  the  regenerators.  That  night  Biggy 
boarded  the  pohce  patrol  boat,  and  took  a  trip 
to  Belvedere  on  the  north  shore  of  San  Francisco 
Bay  to  visit  Police  Commissioner  Hugo  Keil. 
He  spent  more  than  an  hour  with  Keil,  discuss- 
ing his  relations  with  the  regenerators.  He 
talked  of  resigning,  saying  that  he  did  not  wish 
to  embarrass  the  Administration  by  remaining 
in  office.  At  first,  according  to  Keil,  he  seemed 
somewhat  depressed,  but  his  spirits  were  soon 
revived.  Keil  dissuaded  him  from  resigning, 
told  him  the  commissioners  would  stand  by 
him  and  that  there  was  no  occasion  for  worry 
or  anxiety.  Thereafter  he  was  in  a  cheerful 
mood  and  communicative,  telling  Keil  of  the 
motives  of  the  men  who  were  attacking  him,  of 
the  shameful  things  they  wanted  him  to  do,  and 
of  his  firmness  in  resisting  their  evil  importun- 
ities. By  the  time  he  was  ready  to  leave  for 
home  he  seemed  refreshed  as  a  result  of  the 
interview.  Keil  accompanied  him  to  the  launch, 
which  was  in  charge  of  the  engineer,  William 
Murphy.  So  far  as  Keil  knew  there  was  no- 
body else  aboard  the  boat.  The  commissioner 
and  the  chief  bade  each  other  good  night.  They 
never  met  again. 

When.  Biggy  was  last  seen  alive,  according  to 
Murphy's  testimony,  the  launch  was  near  Al- 
catraz  Island,  which  is  about  midway  between 
Belvedere  and  San  Francisco.     He  was  then  re- 


214  THE    REGENERATORS 

dining  on  a  seat  at  the  rail.  He  complained  of 
being  cold,  and  the  engineer  offered  him  some 
whisky,  which  was  refused.  That  was  about  half 
an  hour  before  midnight.  Murphy  says  he 
never  saw  him  again.  When  the  launch  arrived 
in  San  Francisco  Murphy  was  alone.  His  pas- 
senger had  disappeared.  In  a  state  of  great  ex- 
citement Murphy  rushed  to  police  headquarters 
with  the  news.  Out  into  the  bay  went  the 
patrol  boat  again ;  this  time  with  a  captain  of 
police  aboard  in  quest  of  his  missing  chief.  It 
was  a  futile  trip.  The  dead  body  of  William  J. 
Biggy  was  lying  at  the  bottom  of  the  bay, 
whence  it  rose  two  weeks  later  to  float  in  the 
sight  of  men. 

Now  what  were  the  circumstances  of  Biggy's 
death?  Was  he  murdered?  Did  he  commit 
suicide?  Or  was  he  accidentally  drowned?  No- 
body that  knew  him  believes  that  he  committed 
suicide.  He  was  a  Catholic,  a  regular  com- 
municant of  the  church,  and  the  church  au- 
thorities had  no  hesitation  in  burying  him  in 
consecrated  ground.  He  may  have  been  drowned 
accidentally.  Perhaps  as  a  result  of  the  lurch- 
ing of  the  boat  he  was  thrown  overboard.  But 
Biggy  was  known  to  be  a  powerful  swimmer,  and 
certainly,  if  he  had  fallen  overboard,  he  would 
have  called  lustily  for  help.  On  the  night  of 
the  tragedy  there  was  no  wind,  and  the  waters 
of  the  bay  were  smooth,  and  so  there  had  been 
no    very    sudden    violent   lurching    of    the    boat. 


THE    BIGGY    MYSTERY  215 

Nevertheless  the  theory  that  Biggy  was  ac-  i 
cidentally  drowned  is  not  less  plausible  than 
the  theory  that  he  was  murdered.  But  we  ' 
may  entertain  the  theory  of  murder  with- 
out going-  so  far  as  to  believe  the  leading 
regenerators  capable  of  having  had  a  hand 
in  so  atrocious  a  crime. 

San  Francisco,  as  the  reader  knows,  was 
sorely  afflicted  with  a  plague  of  private  detect- 
ives. Among  them  were  some  very  des-  >C. 
perate  characters,  and  they  were  ready  at  all 
times  to  do  not  only  what  they  were  ordered  to 
do  but  to  act  even  on  what  might  be  an  un- 
intentional hint  of  what  was  desirable  to  be  done. 
At  the  time  of  Biggy's  death,  as  we  shall  see, 
nothing  seemed  to  be  more  desirable  to  some 
persons  than  to  be  rid  of  him.  Biggy  had  been 
threatening  to  divulge  some  important  informa- 
tion. On  the  afternoon  of  th6  day  of  his  dis- 
appearance he  met  Congressman  Julius  Kahn, 
and  told  him  that  he  had  much  interesting  mat- 
ter to  disclose  with  respect  to  the  persons  who 
were  persecuting  him.  And  he  promised  to  un- 
burden himself  to  Kahn  in  the  near  future.  He 
was  big  with  this  interesting  matter  when  he 
visited  Commissioner  Keil.  And  Commissioner 
Keil,  as  soon  as  he  heard  of  Biggy's  death,  sat 
down  and  made  a  full  report  of  his  last  conver 
sation  with  the  chief,  reciting  therein  the  charges 
made  by  Biggy  against  some  of  the  most  prom- 
inent of  his  tormentors.     This  report  he  gave  to 


216  THE    REGENERATORS 

Mayor  Taylor  who  refused  to  accept  it,  thus  pre- 
venting it  from  becoming  a  pubHc  record. 
Whether  that  was  Mayor  Taylor's  reason  for  re- 
turning the  report  to  the  commissioner  we  shall 
never  know.  At  any  rate  the  report  was  never 
made  public.  Keil  refused  to  give  it  to  the  press, 
but  he  permitted  a  few^  of  his  friends  to  read 
it,  and  I  have  it  on  their  authority,  men  of  high 
standing  in  the  community,  that  it  was  a  pretty 
severe  indictment  of  a  detective  and  certain 
editors.  I  also  have  it  on  the  authority  of  men 
to  whom  Keil  was  communicative  that  he  was 
convinced  that  Biggy  was  in  danger  of  assassina- 
tion. Biggy  told  him  that  he  was  getting  in- 
formation from  a  traitor  in  the  enemy's  camp. 
With  such  misgivings  did  Biggy  inspire  Keil  that 
the  latter,  learning  that  the  chief  was  unarmed, 
persuaded  him  to  take  the  loan  of  a  pistol. 

As  soon  as  Biggy 's  body  was  found  Joseph 
Dwyer  of  the  Graft  Prosecution  obtained  special 
letters  of  administration  on  the  dead  man's  estate, 
and  it  was  reported  in  the  newspapers  the  follow- 
ing day  that  Dwyer  accompanied  by  Heney's 
partner,  C.  W.  Cobb,  went  to  Biggy's  office  and 
took  possession  of  all  his  private  papers.  Was  it 
important  that  some  of  those  papers  belonging  to 
the  former  elisor  should  not  be  seen?  At  a  later 
day,  as  we  shall  see,  it  seemed  to  be  of  the  high- 
est importance  that  all  the  records  of  the  Graft 
Prosecution  should  disappear  forever. 

A  coroner's  jury  found  that  Bigg\'  was  ac- 


THE    BIGGY    MYSTERY  217 

cidentally  drowned.  But  coroner's  juries  are  not 
noted  for  soundness  of  judgment.  Coroners  are 
not  given  to  searching  investigations,  nor  are  the 
resuhs  of  their  inquests  always  taken  seriously. 
In  this  instance  the  coroner  did  not  elicit  all  the 
available  evidence.  Police  Commissioner  Will- 
iam Cutler  while  on  the  witness  stand  refused 
to  tell  all  he  knew,  and  the  coroner,  an  avowed 
supporter  of  the  regenerators,  made  no  effort 
to  compel  him  to  tell.  Apparently  he  was 
satisfied  with  Cutler's  explanation,  that  if  he  told 
all  he  knew  it  would  cause  a  great  scandal.  But 
Cutler  did  tell  some  interesting  things  He  said 
that  the  life  of  Chief  Biggy  had  been  threatened 
by  men  whom  he  believed  ''would  stop  at  noth- 
ing." He  said  that  Biggy  had  been  spied  upon 
for  months  by  detectives  employed  by  Burns. 

"Did  he  tell  you  that  his  life  had  been 
threatened?"  the  coroner  asked. 

"I  knew  it  had,"  was  the  reply. 

"Was  he  in  fear?" 

"No,  but  he  knew  they  would  go  to  any  ex- 
treme to  get  rid  of  him." 

"What  parties  do  you  refer  to?" 

"That  I  decline  to  answer." 

"In  your  own  opinion  he  had  sufficient  cause 
for  this  belief?" 

"I  have  satisfactory  proof." 

Notwithstanding  this  proof  Commissioner  Cut- 
ler said  he  did  not  believe  Biggy  had  been  mur- 
dered.    Asked  if  he  believed  that  the  chief  had 


218  THE    REGENERATORS 

committed  suicide,  he  said  he  was  certain  he  had 
not.  '"He  was  too  cheerful,"  said  the  witness, 
"when  I  last  saw  him,  the  day  of  his  death ;  be- 
sides he  had  plans  to  carry  out,  about  which  he 
was  most  enthusiastic." 

Detective  Burns  took  occasion  to  deny  in  the 
])ul:lic  prints  that  he  had  hounded  the  chief  of 
police.  The  assertion  that  Biggy  had  been  under 
the  surveillance  of  detectives,  who  were  the  special 
agents  of  the  district  attorney,  paid  by  the  city 
to  assist  the  prosecution,  he  pronounced  a  slander, 
and  promised  to  have  the  matter  investigated  at 
once  by  the  grand  jury.  But  the  matter  was 
dropped.  Burns  was  always  threatening  to  con- 
found his  critics  with  the  aid  of  the  grand  jury 
or  the  courts,  but  never  did  he  carry  out  any 
of  his  threats.  He  promised  to  sue  the  Post  for 
libel  on  account  of  charges  that  grew  out  of  the 
Biggy  tragedy,  and  when  dared  to  do  so  he  left 
town. 

After  the  coroner's  inquest  nothing  more  was 
heard  of  the  Biggy  tragedy  till  nearly  two  years 
elapsed.  In  the  month  of  June,  1911,  William 
Murphy,  the  engineer  of  the  police  patrol  boat, 
became  a  raving  maniac.  In  his  delirium  he  saw 
what  he  believed  to  be  the  ghost  of  William  J. 
Biggy,  and  in  his  terror  he  shrieked,  "I  don't 
know  who  did  it,  but  T  swear  to  God  I  didn't." 


XI 

THE    CONVICTION    OF    RUEF 

A  Jury   after  Listening  to  Vague  Threats  from  the 

Prosecuting  Attorney   Renders  a  Verdict 

of  Guilty 

Let  us  resume  the  history  of  the  Ruef  trial. 
It  was  certainly  resumed  soon  enough  after  the 
shooting  of  Heney.  Hiram  Johnson,  with  no 
little  spectacular  effect,  had  volunteered  to  re- 
sume where  Heney  had  been  obliged  to  quit.  And 
he  was  in  a  great  hurry,  mindful  apparently  of 
the  maxim  regarding  the  advisability  of  strik- 
ing while  the  iron  is  hot.  Three  days  after  the 
shooting  he  was  in  Judge  Lawlor's  courtroom 
pressing  the  case  to  trial.  Ruef's  attorneys  were 
for  delay.  They  wanted  a  change  of  venue. 
How  much  reason  there  was  in  their  demand 
may  be  inferred  from  the  newspapers  of  the  day. 
Consider  for  example  this  account  from  the  Ex- 
aminer :  "With  nearly  a  hundred  armed  detec- 
tives, mounted  police  and  deputy  sheriffs  guard- 
ing Judge  Lawlor's  courtroom  and  its  precincts 
Ruef's  essay  to  delay  his  trial  furnished  one  of 
the  most  intense  mornings  since  the  beginning 
of  the  graft  prosecution.  To  guard  against  the 
outbreak,  when  Ruef  appeared  the  mounted 
squad  kept  the  crowd  from  trickling  into  Larkin 
and  adjoining  streets."     The  atmosphere  of  the 


220  THE    REGENERATORS 

courtroom  and  its  environment  was,  to  say  the 
least,  portentous.  Since  the  day  of  the  shooting 
a  great  change  had  been  wrought  in  the  aspect 
of  affairs,  and  what  that  change  foreboded  Ruef 
and  his  attorneys  well  knew.  Ruef  himself  was 
no  longer  in  the  position  that  he  occupied  before 
the  shooting.  Before  the  shooting  he  was  at 
liberty,  on  bail.  On  the  day  of  the  shooting  he 
was  committed  to  jail  for  his  own  protection,  and 
thereafter  he  was  conducted  to  and  from  court 
by  three  of  the  sheriff's  deputies,  five  policemen 
on  foot  and  ten  mounted.  The  jury  which  was 
in  charge  of  the  sheriff  night  and  day  through- 
out the  trial  occasionally  met  the  Ruef  procession 
on  the  way  to  court.  The  supposition  was  in- 
dulged that  the  jury  had  but  an  inkling  to  all 
that  had  occurred.  For  the  jurors  were  not  per- 
mitted to  read  the  newspapers.  But  the  vague- 
ness of  their  knowledge  was  certainly  not  a  cir- 
cumstance that  advantaged  Ruef,  inasmuch  as  it 
was  apparent  to  them  that  he  was  no  longer  free 
and  that  he  was  under  police  protection.  The 
jury  knew  that  Heney  had  been  shot,  for  the 
door  leading  from  the  jury-room  into  the  court- 
room was  open  at  the  time  of  the  shooting. 
But  the  jury  probably  did  not  know  whether 
Heney  was  dead  or  alive.  The  jury  did  know, 
however,  that  public  sentiment  had  been  wrought 
up  to  a  high  pitch.  This  they  knew  because  on 
the  night  of  the  mass-meeting,  which  overflowed 
into   the   street,   by   a  singular   coincidence  they 


THE    CONVICTION    OF    RUEF  221 

were  conducted  by  permission  of  Judge  Lawlor 
to  a  theatre  adjoining  the  building  in  which  the 
people  were  harangued  by  the  rabble-rousers. 
What  the  jury  thought  of  the  shooting  may  only 
be  conjectured,  but  the  fact  is,  as  was  learned 
from  affidavits  made  by  jurors  after  the  trial, 
some  of  them  went  to  Judge  Lawlor  before  the 
resumption  of  the  trial,  told  him  they  had  be- 
come prejudiced  against  the  defendant  by  reason 
of  the  shooting  and  could  no  longer  act  im- 
partially. Judge  Lawlor  refused  to  discharge 
them.  He  told  them  "to  keep  their  feelings  to 
themselves,"  and  that  he  would  properly  instruct 
them  later.  These  affidavits  have  never  been 
disputed.  Judge  Lawlor  did  instruct  the  jury 
with  reference  to  the  shooting,  saying :  "No  per- 
son is  to  be  charged  with  responsibility  for  that 
transaction."  This  instruction  was  not  satisfy- 
ing to  Henry  Ach  and  Thomas  Dozier,  attorneys 
for  Ruef.  Not  for  the  defendant's  sake  only,  but 
for  their  own  also,  they  were  eager  for  a  change 
of  venue,  since  they,  too,  were  under  police  pro- 
tection on  accounts  of  threats  against  their  lives 
for  defending  their  client.  But  Judge  Lawlor 
quickly  disposed  of  the  motion  for  a  change  of 
venue.  He  denied  it.  And  his  decision  was  ap- 
plauded by  the  spectators,  many  of  whom  wore 
the  printed  badge  of  the  League  of  Justice,  which 
body  was  now  more  energetic  than  ever.  The 
day  on  which  the  trial  was  resumed  the  league 
issued  an  appeal  to  the  public  "to  enroll  in  the 


222  THE    REGENERATORS 

cause  of  justice"  and  "not  to  allow  our  citizen- 
ship to  relapse  into  a  state  of  apparent  moral 
apathy." 

In  extraordinary  emergencies,  as,  for  example, 
when  public  ruin  threatens,  justice  may  properly 
be  sacrificed  to  utility,  the  safety  of  the  people 
being  the  supreme  law.  But  this  principle  was 
not  invoked  in  the  case  of  Abraham  Ruef.  Yet 
justice  was  wantonly  violated.  Justice,  which 
ordinarily  is  "fearful  of  doing  wrong  even  to 
the  greatest  wrong-doers,"  on  Ruef's  second  trial 
was  fearful  of  doing  nothing  but  right.  Never 
from  the  transplanting  of  Anglo-Saxon  justice 
was  there  such  a  trial  as  this  on  American  soil. 
In  the  atmosphere  of  this  trial  one  feels  as  though 
he  had  come  in  contact  with  the  granite  hardness 
of  human  character  on  some  dark  and  tragic 
stage  devoted  to  the  exploits  of  barbaric  tyranny. 

Quick  work  was  made  of  the  fallen  boss 
when  the  trial  was  resumed.  But  despite  what 
had  occurred  the  prosecution  did  not  behave  to- 
ward the  defendant  as  though  there  was  no 
longer  necessity  of  insuring  a  verdict  by  taking 
unfair  advantage.  It  will  not  be  necessary  to 
go  into  details  to  indicate  the  manner  in  which 
he  was  dealt  with.  What  the  attitude  of  the 
judge  on  the  bench  was  is  evident  enough  from 
his  rulings,  but  these  are  to  be  appreciated  only 
by  lawyers  or  persons  who  have  some  acquaint- 
ance with  juridical  procedure.  It  will  suffice  to 
glance  at  the  argument  made  by  Hiram  John- 


THE    CONVICTION    OF    RUEF  223 

son,  for  the  character  of  the  arg-ument  is 
conclusive  of  the  mood  of  the  court.  A 
glance  is  no  more  than  is  needed  to  perceive 
that  this  lawyer,  acting  for  the  district  at- 
torney, must  have  been  somewhat  in  doubt 
as  to  the  conclusiveness  of  the  proofs  of 
guilt,  since  he  much  preferred  to  discuss 
other  matters.  Before  taking  this  glance  it 
may  be  well  by  way  of  preface  to  observe  that 
a  prosecuting  attorney,  under  the  law,  occupies 
a  semi-judicial  position  ;  that  it  is  the  sworn  duty 
of  a  district  attorney  to  see  that  a  defendant  has 
a  fair  and  impartial  trial ;  that  it  is  reversible 
error  under  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  California  for  a  district  attorney  to  express 
in  his  argument  his  opinion  or  belief  that  a  de- 
fendant is  guilty ;  that  remarks  tending  to 
prejudice  the  minds  of  a  jury,  personal  abuse, 
vilification,  appeals  to  fear,  vanity  or  passion 
are  also  inhibited  and  deemed  justification  for 
reversal.  Mr.  Johnson,  as  will  be  seen,  was 
subject  to  none  of  the  restraits  imposed  by  law. 
Early  in  his  argument,  discussing  a  witness 
named  Latham  who  had  left  the  State  to  evade 
judicial  process,  and  who  had  testified  when 
brought  back  that  Ruef  had  not  induced  his 
departure,  Johnson  expressed  himself  in  this  in- 
coherent fashion  :  "Who  had  him  decamp  ?  First 
the  United  Railroads ;  secondly  Abe  Ruef.  That 
is  all  there  is  to  it.  Why  did  they  have  him 
decamp?     An   innocent   man?     Jobbed   was   he? 


224  THE    REGENERATORS 

Paying-  witnesses  and  bribing  witnesses.  Oh, 
yes,  away  with  the  suborners  of  perjury!  Away 
with  the  bribers  of  witnesses !" 

An  exception  was  taken  to  these  remarks. 
Judge  Lawlor  instructed  the  jury  that  the 
remarks  were  not  justified  by  the  record. 
But  he  administered  no  rebuke.  Indeed  he 
permitted  Johnson  to  proceed  thus:  "I  have 
the  undoubted  right  under  my  privilege  as 
an  advocate,  and  so  say  I :  Away  with  the 
bribers  of  jurors  and  away  with  the  brib- 
ers of  witnesses.  That  is  my  right,  and 
there  is  no  question  concerning  it."  If  the  court 
failed  to  rebuke  Johnson  it  cannot  be  said  that 
Johnson  failed  to  rebuke  the  court.  For  we  see 
that  he  boldly  challenged  the  ruling  on  the  ex- 
ception, and  flung  the  objectionable  language  in 
the  judge's  teeth.  And  the  judge  was  com- 
plaisant. The  future  Governor  of  California 
was  in  a  very  pugnacious  mood  on  tb  ,  oc- 
casion. He  was  not  to  be  restrained  by  any 
rule  or  principle ;  he  was_  intolerant  of  all 
shackles ;  his  sentiments  were  free  and  .uien- 
cumbered.  Let  us  consult  the  transcript  on  ap- 
peal and  see  with  what  vehemence  he  wandered 
beyond  the  record,  not  so  much  to  persuade  as 
to  intimidate.  To  the  record  we  must  go  else 
it  w^ould  be  too  great  a  tax  on  credulity  ■  uldly 
to  assert  that  a  prosecuting  attorney,  n  an 
American  court  of  justice,  in  the  twentietl  cen- 
tury, was  permitted  to  practice  intimidatirn  on 
a  jury. 


RUEF    GOING    TO    AND    FROM    COURT 


the    lower    picture    the    ruins    of    the    City    Hall    are    seen    in 
the     distance. 


THE    CONVICTION    OF    RUEF  225 

In  folio  13357  of  Volume  IX  of  the  record  is 
to  be  found  the  following  language :  "Why,  if 
you  don't  convict  this  man  may  God  m  his  in- 
finite mercy  or  worse  call  upon  you  the  conse- 
quences of  your  act.  If  when  he  pleads  himself 
guilty,  as  he  has  in  this  case,  you  dare  to  violate 
your  oaths  and  say  he  is  not  guilty  may  the  good 
God  deal  with  you  because  by  heaven  the  people 
will  not."  The  import  of  all  this  language  is  not 
clear,  but  the  statement  that  Ruef  had  pleaded 
guilty  in  the  case  at  bar  is  bald,  unvarnished  mis- 
representation. He  never  pleaded  guilty  to  brib- 
ery. He  pleaded  guilty  in  one  of  the  French 
restaurant  cases,  and  even  then,  in  the  same 
breath,  affirmed  his  innocence.  Another  vague 
threat  is  to  be  found  in  folio  13380:  "Dure  you 
acquit  this  man  ?  Dare  you  ?  And  when  we 
have  finished  I  will  ask  you  again  my  friends." 
In  folio  13334  we  find  a  telling  allusion  to  the 
Haas  shooting:  "Good  God  all  this  blood  that 
has  been  shed!"  Again,  in  folio  13335:  "Men 
struck  down  doing  their  duty";  folio  13337:  "All 
this  trial,  tribulation  and  all  this  blood" ;  folio 
13419:  "Away  with  the  assassins";  folio  13444: 
"Good  God,  all  this  time,  all  this  money,  all  this 
blood  that  has  been  shed."  And  once  more  a 
threat,  for  Johnson  has  "damnable  iteration"  in 
him :  "If  he  is  not  guilty  may  the  good  God  deal 
with  you.  There  is  going  to  be  no  shifting  of 
responsibility  in  this  determination.  Are  you  in 
the  face  of  all  this  to  turn  him  loose  and  tell  him 


226  THE    REGENERATORS 

to  go  hence?  And  if  you  are  ready  to  do  it  by 
the  gods  above  we  will  know  the  reason  why  you 
are  ready  to  do  it."  This  language  is  more  to 
the  point. 

Throughout  Hiram  Johnson's  argument  the 
courtroom  was  filled  -with  members  of  the 
League  of  Justice,  wearing  their  badges,  and 
glowering  at  the  jury.  Johnson  doubtless  felt 
that  he  was  one  of  them,  and  the  jury  ought  not 
to  have  had  any  difficulty  in  rightly  conjectur- 
ing to  whom  he  referred  when  he  employed  the 
pronoun  in  the  first  person  plural.  But  whether 
the  jury  conjectured  rightly  or  not,  and  whatever 
the  impression  made  by  Johnson's  argument,  the 
outcome  was  highly  satisfactory  to  the  patriots. 
Ruef  was  found  guilty.  And  Ruef  is  today  in 
the  penitentiary  serving  a  sentence  of  fourteen 
years. 

That  Ruef  deserves  to  be  in  prison,  perhaps 
there  are  not  many  in  San  Francisco  who 
will  venture  to  dispute.  But  beyond  doubt 
there  are  few  who  will  deny  that  it  is  most 
unfortunate  that  the  everlasting  law  of  re- 
quital took  so  tortuous  course  to  visit  retribu- 
tion upon  him.  Those  of  us  who  regard  jus- 
tice as  the  centre  of  the  whole  system  of 
government,  who  understand  that  confidence  in 
public  justice  is  the  secret  of  the  grand  pas- 
sion of  patriotism  itself,  cannot  but  take  a  melan- 
choly view  of  the  process  by  which  punishment 
was  visited  on  Abraham  Ruef.      To  deplore  the 


THE    CONVICTION    OF    RUEF  227 

manner  of  his  undoing  is  not  to  compassionate 
him.  Rather  is  one  inchned,  while  complaining 
of  the  injustice  of  which  he  was  the  victim,  to 
be  incensed  at  him  for  having  been  the  cause  of  it. 

A  thorough-paced  rogue  is  Ruef ;  in  the  capacity  >C 
at  once  of  political  boss  and  lawyer  to  a  municipal 
administration  guilty  of  many  immoral  practices, 
perhaps  of  statutory  crimes ;  but  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  all  of  his  wanton  misdeeds  con-^ 
stituted  a  greater  crime  against  the  State  than 
the  one  to  which  he  was  made  a  party  by  the 
men  who  prosecuted  him — the  crime  of  making 
a  mockery  of  justice. 

It  was  bad  enough  for  Abraham  Ruef  to  be 
convicted  in  the  manner  here  described,  but  at  least 
his  trial  and  conviction  were  in  accordance  with 
the  forms  of  law,  and  thus  far  he  was  given  the 
benefit  of  "due  process  of  law."  Eventually  it 
was  deemed  expedient  to  deny  him  even  "due 
process."  Ruef's  appeal  was  carried  to  the 
highest  tribunal  in  the  State.  It  was  his  con- 
stitutional right  to  be  heard  by  that  tribunal. 
There  is  a  statutory  period  in  which  the  court 
must  decide  whether  it  shall  grant  the  applica- 
tion for  a  hearing.  Four  of  the  seven  justices 
of  the  Supreme  Court  (all  that  were  necessary) 
signed  the  order  granting  the  application.  The 
signatures  were  appended  at  different  times,  but 
the  order  was  made  as  of  the  last  day  of  the 
statutory  period.  One  of  the  justices  whose 
signature  was  attached  had  departed  from  the 


228  THE    REGENERATORS 

State.  Quickly  the  prosecution,  through  the  at- 
torney-general, took  advantage  of  a  technicality 
by  which  Ruef  through  no  fault  of  his  own  was 
deprived  of  his  constitutional  right.  It  was 
argued  that  under  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme 
Court  the  justice  who  was  beyond  the  borders 
of  the  State  when  the  order  granting  the  hear- 
ing was  made  had  lost  jurisdiction,  and  therefore 
that  the  order  was  void.  And  so  the  court  held. 
Thus  was  justice  meted  out  to  Abraham  Ruef, 
or,  rather,  thus  did  Attorney-General  Webb  join 
with  the  fallen  boss  in  a  glorious  triumph  over 
that  great  virtue  which,  some  philosopher  has 
said,  is  as  essential  to  the  training  of  a  little  in- 
fant as  to  the  management  of  a  mighty  nation. 


XII 

THE    CALHOUN    TRIAL 

I'oUoivcd  by  the  Crushing  Defeat  of  Heney  at  the 

Polls  and  a  Scattering  of  the  Forces 

of  Righteousness 

Between  the  clay  of  Ruef's  conviction,  Decem- 
ber 19,  1908,  and  the  extinguishment  of  his  hopes 
in  March,  1911,  when  he  entered  the  penitentiary, 
the  experience  of  the  regenerators  was  such  as 
to  dishearten  them.  But  for  a  short  time,  im- 
mediately after  Ruef's  conviction,  they  were  in  a 
most  sanguine  mood  and  full  of  energy.  The 
time  seemed  propitious  for  the  trial  which 
Patrick  Calhoun  had  been  demanding  from 
month  to  month.  The  supposition  was  that  the 
conviction  of  Ruef  strengthened  the  probability 
of  the  conviction  of  the  railroad  official.  So 
Calhoun  was  accorded  a  trial.  Judge  Lawlor 
presiding.  Once  again  was  the  State  repre- 
sented by  Francis  J.  Heney,  now  recovered  from 
his  wound  and  in  the  pink  of  condition,  attended 
by  two  bodyguards,  with  Detective  Burns  and 
four  of  his  men  forming  a  semi-circle  at  the 
little  prosecutor's  back.  Thus  was  revived  the 
primitive  custom  of  the  community  of  Bitter 
Creek.  Both  sides  were  armed  to  the  teeth.  So 
prevalent  was  the  pistol  in  the  court-room  that 
it  seemed  to  be  deemed  essential  to  a  proper  and 


230  THE    REGENERATORS 

effective  administration  of  justice.  It  was  as 
though  Justice  carried  a  pistol  in  her  belt  to 
reinforce  the  menace  of  the  sword. 

The  work  of  impaneling  a  jury  for  the  Cal- 
houn case  was  begun  January  12,  1909,  and 
thereafter  the  spectators  supped  full  of  sensa- 
tions day  by  day.  Sixty-three  days  were  spent 
in  getting  a  jury.  During  that  period  2310  tales- 
men were  examined.  It  was  hard  to  get  a  jury 
for  reasons  that  must  be  obvious ;  yet  perhaps  it 
may  be  well  to  remind  the  reader  that  the  con- 
test which  had  been  raging  for  three  years  had 
embittered  the  feelings  of  almost  every  citizen  of 
San  Francisco.  Nothing  short  of  a  most  sublime 
celestial  spirit  could  insure  a  man  against  ardent 
sympathy  with  one  side  or  the  other.  Hardly 
anybody  could  be  found  who  had  not  formed  an 
opinion  as  to  what  should  be  done  either  to  the 
higher-ups  or  to  the  regenerators. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  the  muckrakers  of 
magazinedom  were  deploring  the  spread  of  the 
sentiment  that  the  Graft  Prosecution  was  "hurt- 
ing business."  The  muckrakers  indicted  a  whole 
cityful.  To  what  great  length  of  insight  had 
these  dogmatists  of  the  press  advanced !  After 
a  few  days  in  the  company  of  Detective  Burns, 
or  as  the  guest  of  Rudolph  Spreckels,  any  New 
York  journalist  could  tell  you  just  what  the  mat- 
ter was  with  San  Francisco.  It  was  a  degenerate 
city,  its  ears  closed  to  the  Voice  in  the  Wilder- 
ness ;  dominated  by  building  beavers ;  heedful 
only  of  the  Gospel  of  Mammonism. 


THE    CALHOUN    TRIAL  231 

Assuredly  the  Graft  Prosecution  had  "hurt 
business."  Indeed  business  had  not  yet  recov- 
ered from  the  effect  of  the  car  strike.  Be- 
sides hurting  business  the  Graft  Prosecution 
was  making  the  whole  city  very  unhappy.  Now 
the  happiness  of  a  city  is  a  matter  of  some 
consequence.  A  domestic  quarrel  involving  all 
the  elements  of  a  community  is  an  affair  of  State, 
a  melancholy  one.  Were  the  people  to  blame 
that  the  essay  in  regeneration  had  developed  into 
a  domestic  quarrel?  Consider  the  direction  it 
took  from  the  start  by  reason  of  the  exhortations 
of  the  patriots  for  public  complaisance.  This 
domestic  quarrel  was  a  legitimate  fruit  of  cir- 
cumstance, a  natural  and  normal  development 
which  any  student  of  cause  and  effect  might  have 
predicted.  And  now  that  it  was  growing  more 
furious  every  day,  it  was  also  becoming  more  in- 
tolerable. Surely  it  did  not  argue  a  lack  of  vir- 
tue that  "a  plague  o'  both  your  houses"  had  be- 
come the  sentiment  of  many  citizens  who  per- 
ceived that  to  the  regenerators  their  cause  was 
their  vanity,  which  was  not  to  be  wounded 
"Though   sun  and  moon   were   in   the  flat   sea   sunk." 

Such,  then,  being  the  sentiment  gendered  dur- 
ing three  years  of  factional  strife,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  a  jury  was  hard  to  get  to  try  Patrick  Cal- 
houn. Citizen  after  citizen  confessed  in  the  jury- 
box  to  prejudice  against  the  men  behind  the 
prosecution.  Scores  of  citizens  asserted  that  they 
would  not  believe  testimony  purchased  with  ini- 


232  THE    REGENERATORS 

munity.  Slow  and  tedious  therefore  was  the 
task  of  finding  twelve  good  men  and  true  to 
administer  justice  to  the  pet  aversion  of  the  tire- 
less cabal.  But  the  tedium  was  relieved  at  brief 
intervals  by  colorful  and  breezy  episodes.  As 
for  example,  when  a  man  in  the  jury  book  com- 
plained one  day  that  his  wife  had  been  questioned 
at  her  home  by  an  intrusive  detective,  who  wanted 
to  know  what  her  husband  thought  of  Calhoun. 
The  judge  pricked  up  his  ears  at  this  disclosure. 
Had  Calhoun  been  trying  to  get  advance  informa- 
tion? In  all  likelihood  such  was  the  case.  But, 
alas,  it  turned  out  that  the  detective  was  of 
Burns's  staff.  So  Heney  concluded  that  the 
defendant  had  tempted  the  detective  to  turn 
traitor  and  occasion  the  suspicion  that  the  prose- 
cution was  tampering  with  jurors.  Quick  at  all 
times  was  Heney  to  impute  misconduct  to  the 
other  side. 

At  another  time  when  dullness  was  making  all 
hands  drowsy  Earl  Rogers,  of  counsel  for  defend- 
ant, fired  the  combustible  Heney  with  a  mild 
innuendo.  Several  jurors  had  been  sworn  to  try 
the  case,  making  the  moment  opportune  for 
some  verbal  fireworks.  In  his  best  strident  tones 
Heney  announced  that  he  would  no  longer 
tolerate  unpleasant  insinuations.  And  then  re- 
viving recollection  of  the  spilling  of  his  precious 
blood  on  the  altar  of  civic  patriotism,  he  broached 
:i  new  theory  as  to  the  psychology  of  his  almost 
glorious  extinction.     He  said  that  he  was  shot 


THE    CALHOUN    TRIAL  233 

l)ecause  he  had  so  tamely  suhmitted  to  vihfica- 
tion  during  the  Ruef  trials.  W'hich  seemed  to 
imply  that  he  had  ceased  to  believe  that  he  was 
the  victim  of  a  conspiracy.  IJy  way  of  perora- 
tion Heney  launched  the  ultimatum  that  over  a 
line  which  he  had  drawn  no  man  would  be  per- 
mitted to  step.  Whereupon  the  cynical  A.  A. 
Moore,  leading  attorney  for  the  defendant, 
blandly  asked,  with  a  glance  at  the  animated  ar- 
senals environing  Heney.  "Are  you  going  to  turn 
loose  your  gun  fighters?"  The  superheated  lit- 
tle patriot  ignored  the  pertinent  inquiry. 

Heney's  irruptions  contributed  no  little  gaiety 
to  the  proceedings.  One  day  shortly  after  the 
trial  was  begun  Judge  Lawlor  mildly  rebuked 
him,  just  to  indicate,  perhaps,  that  there  were 
bounds  to  the  indulgence  of  the  court.  But 
Heney  was  not  to  be  awed  by  the  bench.  He 
defied  Judge  Lawlor  to  punish  him,  delivered  an 
oration  on  his  personal  status,  and  again  re- 
minded everybody  that  an  attempt  had  been 
made  to  take  his  life.  Hardly  had  he  subsided 
when  his  assistant,  John  O'Gara,  provoked  an- 
other uproar.  From  long  association  with  Heney 
O'Gara  had  caught  the  infection  of  the  Heney 
manner.  He  accused  a  little  boy,  who  acted  as 
a  messenger  for  defendant's  counsel,  of  sneering 
at  a  witness  "in  full  view  of  the  jury."  Doubt- 
less he  feared  that  a  juvenile  sneer  might  have 
the  effect  of  a  powerful  argument.  In  the  midst 
of  the  clash  between  counsel  occasioned  by  the 


234  THE    REGENERATORS 

grave  accusation  against  tlie  messenger  boy,  the 
defendant  himself  rose  and  addressed  the  court. 
"I  am  on  trial  here,"  he  said,  "and  I  desire  to 
enter  a  protest  against  the  conduct  of  the  district 
attorney  as  unbecoming  and  contrary  to  every 
rule  of  law  and  of  practice  among  English- 
speaking  people." 

A  mild,  impressive  protest,  but  futile.  Almost 
every  rule  of  law  and  practice  was  abrogated  be- 
fore Calhoun  came  to  the  end  of  his  trial. 

The  specific  charge  on  which  Calhoun  was 
tried  was  that  of  promising  a  bribe  to  Supervisor 
Nicholas.  The  prosecution  was  to  prove  that 
Nicholas  received  the  promise  from  Gallagher, 
who  received  it  from  Ruef,  who  received  it  from 
an  ofificer  of  the  United  Railroads.  A  very  small 
part  of  the  time  consumed  in  the  trial  was  spent 
in  trying  to  establish  the  facts  charged.  Most 
of  the  time  was  spent  in  efiforts  to  prejudice  the 
jury  against  the  defendant.  And  to  that  end  the 
prosecution  was  permitted  to  introduce  a  large 
mass  of  testimony  having  not  the  slightest  bear- 
ing on  the  issue.  The  street  car  strike  was  the 
topic  of  much  testimony ;  also  the  dynamiting  of 
Gallagher's  home  and  the  contest  in  thievery  be- 
tween the  opposing  stafifs  of  detectives.  As  a 
consequence  of  the  scope  vouchsafed  Heney  by 
Judge  Lawlor,  this  trial,  involving  but  one  ques- 
tion, the  question  as  to  whether  the  promise  of  a 
bribe  had  been  made  to  a  supervisor,  dragged 
along  from  January  12  till  June  21. 


WILLIAM       P.     LAWLOK 


The    "midnight    meeting"    judge    who    presided    at    the 
Ruef   and    Calhoun    trials. 


THE    CALHOUN    TRIAL  235 

At  the  close  of  the  trial  after  the  case  was 
in  the  hands  of  the  jury.  Judge  Lawlor  gave 
a  fresh  illustration  of  his  mental  attitude  in  the 
graft  cases.  To  render  the  illustration  obvious 
it  must  be  explained  that  the  Ruef  jury,  a 
majority  of  which  voted  for  conviction  on  the 
first  ballot,  was  kept  out  till  the  last  man  was 
converted.  This  necessitated  a  session  of  nearly 
seventy-two  hours.  A  majority  of  the  Calhoun 
jury  voted  for  acquittal  on  the  first  ballot.  It 
was  soon  learned  that  only  two  jurors  were  hold- 
ing out  for  conviction.  Judge  Lawlor  made  their 
conversion  impossible  by  discharging  the  jury 
within  twenty-four  hours. 

As  soon  as  the  trial  was  over  there  was  talk 
of  starting  another  trial  at  once.  Heney  began 
vociferating  as  passionately  as  ever,  pourmg  out 
his  torrent  of  words,  uttering  the  threats  that  so 
seldom  fructify  in  achievement.  But  things  were 
not  so  bad  as  in  the  days  when  the  terrorists 
were  more  firmly  seated  in  the  saddle.  No 
threats  were  made  to  indict  the  recalcitrant 
jurors  who  had  not  been  impressed  by  Heney 's 
breezy  generalities.  No  loud  proclamations  were 
made  by  the  League  of  Justice.  Mr.  Spreckels 
and  his  satellites  were  subdued  of  manner,  the 
general  tone  of  their  utterances  being  that  of 
sorrow   and  poignant   disappointment. 

The  work  of  impaneling  a  jury  for  a  second 
trial  was  soon  begun,  but  it  had  not  progressed 
far  when  a  halt  was  called,  the  reason  being  that 


236  THE    REGENERATORS 

FTeney  was  in  tlie  midst  of  a  political  campaign, 
l^istrict  Attorney  Langclon's  term  was  drawing 
to  a  close.  An  election  was  to  be  held  in  No- 
vember, 1909.  To  prolong  the  life  of  the  reform 
cabal  it  was  resolved  that  Heney  should  become 
a  candidate  for  district  attorney.  He  was  nom- 
inated by  the  Democratic  machine,  which  was 
manipulated  by  James  D.  Phelan  and  the  Bul- 
letin. Heney 's  opponent  was  Charles  AI.  Fickert. 
a  young  lawyer,  a  graduate  of  Stanford  Uni- 
versity. His  record  was  flawless.  He  had  taken 
no  active  part  in  the  dissensions  that  were  tor- 
menting the  city.  To  the  public  he  was  un- 
known. The  campaign  was  an  exceptionally 
spirited  one.  All  the  attorneys  for  the  Spreckels- 
Phelan  combine  took  to  the  platform  to  exhort 
the  people  to  avail  themselves  of  the  glorious 
privilege  of  retaining  the  priceless  services  of 
Francis  J.  Heney.  Heney  himself  went  about 
reminding  the  people  of  his  approximate  martyr- 
dom and  calumniating  his  opponent.  Judging 
from  the  pro-prosecution  press  at  this  time  the 
whole  country  was  watching  the  campaign  and 
taking  a  feverish  interest  in  the  great  crisis  that 
was  agitating  the  dizzy  heights  of  uplift.  From 
the  most  distant  parts  sounded  the  clarion  tone> 
of  renowned  reformers  commending  Heney  to 
the  grace  of  the  people.  Judge  Lindsay  of 
Denver  contributed  a  fine  encomium  on  Heney. 
which  transported  the  friends  of  the  little  prose- 
cutor.    From  Senator  La  Follette  came  this  im- 


THE    CALHOUN    TRIAL  237 

portant  message :  "Heney's  election  will  help  the 
cause  of  decency  and  righteousness  everywhere." 
Colonel  Roosevelt  refrained  from  instructing  the 
people  in  this  crisis,  but  he  sent  a  letter  to  Heney, 
which  found  its  way  into  the  press : — "You  are 
one  of  the  Americans  of  whom  I  not  merely  feel 
proud,  but  whose  deeds,  whose  high  courage, 
high  integrity  and  entire  disinterestedness  of 
devotion  to  the  country  make  me  thrill  with 
enthusiasm." 

An  insensate  populace  no  longer  susceptible 
to  the  emotions  of  the  hero  of  Kettle  Hill, 
utterly  ignored  the  Roosevelt  thrill.  Out  of 
sixty-two  thousand  votes  Heney  w^as  beaten  by 
more  than  ten  thousand.  Seemingly  Heney  had 
l)ecome  a  weariness  to  the  flesh ;  likewise  the 
flraft  Prosecution.  Not  so,  however,  in  the  judg- 
ment of  Mayor  Taylor's  whitewash  committee. 
This  committee  tells  us  that  Fickert's  election  was 
due  to  the  support  of  bad  men  and  to  the  cir- 
cumstance that  "some  of  Mr.  Heney's  speeches 
lent  color  to  the  claim  that  he  was  attempting  to 
try  the  accused  men  at  the  bar  of  public  opinion 
rather  than  in  the  courts  of  justice."  Heney's 
conduct  did  not  receive  the  approval  of  the  com- 
mittee because  "he  permitted  himself  to  be  drawn 
into  personalities  from  which  a  calmer  judgment 
would  have  saved  him." 

To  the  regenerators  the  defeat  of  Heney  was 
the  signal  for  the  ringing  down  of  the  curtain 
on  the  graft  drama.     Within  a  month  after  his 


23S  THE    REGENERATORS 

defeat,  before  District  Attorney  Langdon's  term 
of  office  expired,  the  requiem  of  the  regenerators 
was  sung  by  the  whitewash  committee.  It  was 
in  the  form  of  a  report  to  Mayor  Taylor,  who  evi- 
dently regarded  it  as  of  more  importance  than 
the  report  of  Police  Commissioner  Keil  with 
reference  to  the  death  of  Chief  Biggy,  for  he  re- 
ceived it,  and  it  became  an  official  document,  and 
it  was  printed  and  distributed  at  the  expense  of 
the  taxpayers  of  the  city.  The  hand  that  wrote 
the  report  is  doubtless  the  hand  of  Chairman 
Denman,  but  the  spirit  of  the  report  is  the  spirit 
of  the  regenerators.  For  one  of  the  objects  of 
the  report  was  to  perpetuate  the  names  of  all  the 
directors  of  the  public  service  corporations  in- 
volved in  the  graft  scandal.  All  vrere  not  in- 
dicted, but  the  names  of  all  were  printed.  As 
the  report  may  be  justly  regarded  as  the  judg- 
ment of  the  regenerators  on  their  own  conduct, 
it  is  of  some  value.  In  all  the  discussion  rang- 
ing from  philippic  to  puerility  there  is  ever 
present  the  assumption  that  the  regenerators 
could  do  no  wrong.  The  report  breathes  intense 
consciousness  of  kinship  with  all  the  virtues  and 
the  noblest  ideals.  It  is  a  sweeping  vindication 
of  the  regenerators  and  a  farewell  snarl  at  the 
higher-ups.  The  whitewash  committee  found  a 
pretext  for  going  back  in  a  review  of  municipal 
affairs  to  the  days  when  Phelan  was  mayor  and 
paying  him  the  tribute  of  its  approval.  Coming 
down  to  the  real  business  in  hand  the  committee 


THE    CALHOUN    TRIAL  239 

gives  a  recital  of  all  the  crimes  charged  against 
the  grafters  and  the  higher-ups — with  one  excep- 
tion. This  one  exception  is  noteworthy.  No- 
where in  the  report  is  mention  made  of  the  crime 
charged  against  the  officers  of  the  Southern 
Pacific  Company.  Notwithstanding  what  was 
said  in  the  report  of  the  Oliver  grand  jury,  so 
far  as  the  report  of  the  whitewash  committee 
shows  Mr.  Harriman  never  did  anything  to 
justify  the  fond  hopes  that  were  encouraged  at 
the  inception  of  the  work  of  redemption.  The 
whitewash  committee  tells  of  the  crimes  that 
were  committed  to  defeat  the  prosecution,  among 
them  being  the  dynamiting  of  Gallagher's  home, 
the  kidnaping  of  Older  and  the  shooting  of 
Heney.  But  there  is  no  mention  of  the  hound- 
ing of  Biggy,  or  of  the  practices  that  were  in- 
dulged in  to  terrorize  the  courts,  or  of  the  short 
cuts  to  conviction  taken  by  trial  judges.  The 
committee  tells  of  the  papers  that  were  stolen 
by  detectives  employed  by  the  higher-ups,  but 
nothing  is  said  in  the  report  of  the  papers  stolen 
by  the  other  side,  or  of  the  ignoring  of  the  writ 
of  injunction  served  upon  the  prosecution  by 
William  Metson,  of  counsel  for  the  defense,  the 
day  that  Burns,  armed  with  general  warrants, 
raided  the  offices  of  the  United  Railroads.  In 
the  report  there  is  but  one  invidious  reflection  on 
the  regenerators  and  that  probably  was  the  re- 
sult of  inadvertence.  "The  Administration," 
says  the  committee,  "is  still  licensing  the  attrac- 


240  THE    REGENERATORS 

tive  and  alluring  debauchery  of  the  French 
restaurants."  The  Administration  referred  to 
was  that  of  Dr.  Taylor,  the  good  man  discovered, 
sponsored  and  vouched  for  by  the  regenerators. 

With  the  defeat  of  Francis  J.  Heney  the  Graft 
Prosecution  petered  out.  Patrick  Calhoun  was 
not  given  a  second  trial.  The  public  was  in- 
formed by  the  regenerators  that  it  was 
deemed  advisable  to  let  Mr.  Langdon's  suc- 
cessor inherit  the  case.  At  the  same  time 
it  was  predicted  by  the  dejected  and  disgruntled 
patriots  that  nothing  more  would  be  done,  as 
Fickert  was  not  likely  to  prosecute  the  men  who 
assisted  him  into  office.  It  was  a  pretty  safe 
prediction  for  them  to  make.  For  no  man, 
were  he  the  greatest  and  most  zealous  of  prose- 
cutors, could  have  accomplished  anything  in 
the  circumstances  contrived  by  the  prophets.  Im- 
mediately after  his  election  Fickert  said  that 
he  would  do  whatever  to  him  seemed  just  and 
proper  after  he  had  familiarized  himself  with  the 
evidence  against  the  higher-ups.  He  soon  per- 
ceived that  there  was  nothing  for  him  to  do. 
Before  he  took  possession  of  the  district  at- 
torney's office  it  was  swept  clean  of  the  records 
in  the  graft  cases.  Not  a  vestige  was  to  be 
found  of  the  work  done  by  the  corps  of  special  , 
agents  employed  by  the  city.  A  great  mass  of 
documents  had  disappeared.  There  was  no  trace 
of  anything  that  might  throw  a  ray  of  light  on 


THE    CALHOUN    TRIAL  241 

the  business  transacted  by  the  district  attorney 
in  connection  with  the  graft  cases.  In  addition 
to  being  deprived  of  the  records  of  his  office 
District  Attorney  Fickert  was  further  em- 
barrassed by  the  disappearance  of  James  Gal- 
lagher, the  chief  witness  for  the  prosecution. 
Gallagher  had  been  under  the  surveillance  of  the 
former  district  attorney's  special  agents.  A 
detective  accompanied  him  everywhere.  This 
surveillance  was  discontinued  a  few  weeks  be- 
fore Fickert  took  possession  of  the  district  at- 
torney's office.  Before  Fickert's  election  Burns 
had  doubly  insured  the  presence  of  Gallagher. 
All  Gallagher's  loot  was  in  a  safe-deposit  box 
which  he  could  not  open  except  in  the  presence 
of  Burns.  Now  it  is  obvious  that  the  regen- 
erators connived  at  the  disappearance  of  Gal- 
lagher. District  Attorney  Fickert  learned  that 
after  the  defeat  of  Heney,  Gallagher  told  his 
friends  he  was  going  away.  He  made  no  secret 
of  the  matter.  Fickert  also  learned  that  though 
the  second  trial  of  Patrick  Calhoun  was  begun 
by  Heney  no  subpoena  was  ever  served  on  Gal- 
lagher. Consequently  no  attachment  for  him 
could  issue,  and  as  he  was  in  V^ancouver,  where, 
as  he  had  told  his  friends,  he  intended  to  re- 
main until  the  graft  cases  had  been  disposed  of, 
it  was  impossible  to  bring  him  back.  These  be- 
ing the  facts  brought  to  light  before  Judge  Law- 
lor  through  the  sworn  testimony  of  witnesses 
there   appeared   to  be   nothing  for  District  At- 


242  THE    REGENERATORS 

torney  Fickert  to  do  but  move  to  dismiss  the 
graft  cases.  This  motion  Judge  Lawlor  would 
not  grant.  He  postponed  the  cases  from  week 
to  week  against  the  protest  of  the  defendants  un- 
til August  3,  1910,  when  he  did  something  more. 
With  bitter  mortification  Judge  Lawlor  realized 
that  the  end  was  approaching.  The  prospect  was 
a  melancholy  one  for  him.  The  cause  with 
which  he  was  identified,  into  which  he  had  in- 
extricably wound  himself,  had  not  only  been 
defeated  but  befouled,  and  he  himself  had  been 
besmirched.  Agitated  by  impotent  regret,  sore 
from  great  vexations,  it  was  impossible  for  a 
man  of  his  temperament,  in  whom  cunning  and  re- 
sentment seem  to  be  congenital  deformities,  to 
yield  gracefully  and  amiably  to  the  weight 
of  untoward  circumstance.  He  was  resolved 
to  have  one  more  inning.  And  he  had  it.  Un- 
der pretense  of  explaining  why  he  would  not 
grant  the  motion  to  dismiss  the  trolley  cases 
he  read  a  long  typewritten  arraignment  of 
the  defendants.  The  result  was  the  last  of  the 
many  explosions  that  marked  the  progress  of  the 
Graft  Prosecution.  Judge  Lawlor  began  his 
discourse  by  admitting  that  Gallagher  vvas  an 
indispensable  witness ;  but  it  was  not  clear,  he 
said,  that  Gallagher  left  town  with  the  permis- 
sion of  the  former  district  attorney.  Notwith- 
standing the  control  which  Judge  Lawlor  knew 
that  Burns,  Heney  and  Langdon  exercised  over 
Gallagher ;  notwithstanding  the  undisputed  testi- 


THE    CALHOUN    TRIAL  243 

mony  as  to  the  time  and  circumstances  of  Gal- 
lagher's disappearance,  Judge  Lavvlor  thought  it 
as  likely  that  the  defendants  had  induced  Gal- 
lagher to  run  away  as  that  the  former  prosecutors 
had  done  so.  Such  was  the  thought  that  he 
expressed.  And  then  he  went  on  to  impute  to 
Patrick  Calhoun  the  consciousness  of  certain 
crimes,  such  as  the  dynamiting  of  Gallagher's 
home  and  the  suppression  of  testimony.  There 
was  nothing  to  justify  these  imputations.  Yet 
Judge  Lawlor  made  them  by  way  of  suggesting 
the  possibility  of  Calhoun's  having  instigated  the 
flight  of  the  indispensable  witness.  At  the  con- 
clusion of  the  court's  wholesale  gratuitous  as- 
sertions Stanley  Moore,  of  counsel  for  the  de- 
fendant, asked  permission  to  reply.  He  was  or- 
dered to  take  his  seat.  Thereupon  the  pent-up 
indignation  that  had  been  fermenting  for  four 
years  was  liberated.  In  denying  Moore  the  right 
to  be  heard  Judge  Lawlor  suggested  in  an 
ironical  tone  that  the  attorney  might  reply 
through  the  columns  of  the  press. 

"We  assign  that,"  said  Moore,  "as  the  last 
word  of  your  partisanship.  We  insist  on  a  right 
which  any  court  with  a  speck  of  fairness  will 
freely  accord  us."  Judge  Lawlor  again  ordered 
him  to  sit  down,  and  threatened  to  send  him  to 
jail.  "Your  honor,"  said  Moore,  "is  doing  pol- 
itics from  the  bench  that  you  disgrace  by  your 
occupancy  and  as  you  have  been  doing  before 
the  indictments  were  filed." 


244  THE    REGENERATORS 

At  this  point  A.  A.  Moore,  father  of  Stanley 
Moore,  announced  that  he  heartily  agreed  with 
his  son.  "Your  honor,"  he  added,  "is  a  bitter 
partisan  and  doing-  dirty  politics." 

Stanley  Moore  was  still  insisting  on  his  right 
to  be  heard,  and  the  court  ordered  him  into  cus- 
tody, at  the  same  time  adjudging  him  guilty  of 
contempt.  A  moment  later  he  also  adjudged  A. 
A.  Moore  guilty  of  contempt.  As  the  senior 
Moore  was  not  promptly  taken  into  custody  he 
rose  and  said,  "I  do  not  quite  understand  your 
honor.  I  tried  to  line  myself  up  here  in  thorough 
accord  with  Stanley  Moore,  holding  your  honor 
as  I  do  in  thorough  detestation,  believing  you 
to  be  an  absolutely  contemptible  man."  At  this 
point  A.  A.  Moore  was  taken  into  custody. 

The  scene  was  not  yet  ended.  Attorney  J.  J. 
Barrett  had  a  few  words  to  say.  "I  want  to 
register  on  behalf  of  Mr.  Calhoun,"  he  said,  "a 
most  solemn  and  serious  protest. .  I  want  to  say 
that  he  considers  the  proceedings  of  today  in- 
famous ;  that  his  rights  have  been  trampled 
upon ;  that  the  attempt  to  silence  him  in  view  of 
that  address  which  your  honor  has  upon  your 
desk  typewritten,  intending,  I  assume,  to  hand  to 
the  newspapers  reporters  to  have  it  go  broadcast 
without  a  denial  by  Mr.  Calhoun — 1  want  to  say 
that  it  is  the  most  unjust  and  oppressive  ruling 
that  was  ever  made  in  an  American  court  of 
justice.  I  want  to  protest  in  the  name  of  Ameri- 
cans.    I  want  to  protest  in  the  name  of  my  pro- 


THE    CALHOUN    TRIAL  245 

fession.  I  want  to  protest  in  the  name  of  de- 
cency. To  level  that  kind  of  a  document  at  these 
defendants,  and  then,  under  penalty  of  sending 
their  counsel  to  jail,  deny  them  an  opportunity 
to  reply  to  it,  is  taking  this  case  out  of  the  sacred 
temple  of  justice  into  the  political  arena.  Your 
honor  being'  a  candidate  for  office  at  this  time, 
and  having  postponed  these  cases  till  the  eve  of 
the  primaries  should  not  be  guilty  of  any  such 
oppression.  In  the  name  of  Mr.  Calhoun  I  want 
to  register  my  protest,  and  I  only  regret  that  I 
have  not  more  severe  language  in  which  to  ex- 
press his  indignation." 

Barrett  was  adjudged  guilty  of  contempt. 
Then  Calhoun  addressed  the  court  thus : 

"May  it  please  your  honor,  I  have  been 
educated  to  have  respect  for  the  courts.  I  have 
sat  in  your  court  under  circumstances  that  would 
have  tried  the  patience  of  any  American.  I  have 
sought,  sir,  to  give  you  that  respect  to  which  your 
office  entitles  you.  But  I  cannot  sit  quiet  and 
listen  to  the  vile  insinuations  which  you  your- 
self have  stated  there  was  no  evidence  before  you 
to  justify.  There  have  been  periods,  sir,  when 
the  greatest  honor  that  could  come  to  a  man  was 
to  go  to  jail;  and  as  an  American  citizen  I  say 
to  you  that  if  you  should  send  me  for  contempt 
it  will  be  heralded  all  over  the  country  as  an 
honor.  You  have  seen  fit  to  send  three  of  the 
most  distinguished  counsel  of  this  State  to  jail. 
Why?     Because  thev  have  sought  to  express  in 


246  THE    REGENERATORS 

terms  of  respect,  and  yet  in  terms  of  strength, 
their  protest  against  injustice." 

"Mr.  Calhoun — "  interrupted  the  court. 

"There  is  a  time — pardon  me,  your  honor — 
but  there  is  a  time  when  every  man  has  a  right 
to  be  heard." 

Judge  Lawlor  a  second  time  interrupted,  but 
Calhoun  concluded  what  he  had  ri$en  to  say : 
"Before  I  take  my  seat  I  desire  to  say  that  any 
insinuation  that  implies  that  I  was  a  party  to  any 
obstructions  of  justice,  or  that  I  was  a  party  to 
the  absence  of  any  witness  or  that  I  have  sought 
to  control  the  district  attorney's  office,  is  untrue. 
There  is  no  such  evidence  before  this  court.  You 
yourself  know  it." 

Calhoun  was  not  adjudged  guilty  of  contempt. 

In  the  course  of  time  the  attorneys  for  the 
higher-ups  applied  to  the  District  Court  of  Ap- 
peal for  a  writ  of  mandate  requiring  Judge  Law- 
lor to  dismiss  the  cases  that  he  refused  to  try. 
The  matter  was  argued  by  Garret  W.  Mc- 
Enerney,  who  pointed  out  that  it  was  the  estab- 
lished constitutional  and  statutory  rule  of  law 
in  California  that  every  man  accused  of  crime 
must  be  brought  to  trial,  unless  good  cause  for 
delay  be  shown,  within  sixty  days  after  the  filing 
of  the  indictment.  Of  neither  the  law  nor  the 
facts  was  there  any  dispute.  It  was  admitted 
that  the  continuance  of  a  case  for  more  than  sixty 
days,  notwithstanding  the  protest  of  the  defend- 
ant, entitled  him  to  a  dismissal  unless  it  could  be 


THE    CALHOUN    TRIAL  247 

shown  that  there  was  good  cause  for  postpone- 
ment. The  District  Court  of  Appeal  issued  the 
writ  of  mandate  on  August  16,  1911.  The  opin- 
ion of  the  court  is  of  some  interest  inasmuch  as 
it  bears  out  what  has  been  said  in  this  chapter 
with  reference  to  the  flight  of  Gallagher.  The 
only  question  before  the  court  was  whether  the 
State  was  responsible  for  the  absence  of  the  in- 
dispensable witness.  "It  was  shown,"  said  the 
court,  "that  Gallagher  had  left  the  vState  if  not 
openly,  at  least  without  concealment  of  his  inten- 
tion. It  was  shown  that  he  had  openly  and 
freely  visited  ticket  offices  inquiring  about  rail- 
road and  steamship  transportation.  He  declared 
to  his  friends  that  it  was  his  intention  to  make 
an  extended  tour  of  Europe ;  that  he  was  not  un- 
der the  process  of  the  court ;  that  the  time  in 
wdiich  he  could  be  indicted  for  complicity  in  the 
crime  charged  against  petitioner  had  expired ; 
and  that  he  was  'not  coming  back  until  the  whole 
thing  blows  over.'  "  All  this,  it  is  important  to 
note,  occurred  when  Langdon  was  district  at- 
torney and  when  Heney  was  his  assistant.  It  is 
also  important  to  note  that  Judge  Lawlor  in  his 
return  to  the  application  for  a  writ  of  mandate 
admitted  the  facts  to  be  as  recited  in  the  fore- 
going language.  This  is  important  because 
Judge  Lawlor,  as  we  have  seen,  thought  it  pos- 
sible on  one  occasion  that  the  defendants  might 
have  prompted  Gallagher  to  run  away.  Having 
this  thought  Judge  Lawlor  continued  the  Ford 


248  THE    REGENERATORS 

case  fifty-six  times  and  kept  Ford's  motion  to  dis- 
miss under  advisement  four  hundred  days.  He 
said  tliat  the  facts  of  the  case  "warranted  the  in- 
ference" that  Gallagher  would  return.  The  Dis- 
trict Court  of  Appeal  said  no  such  inference  was 
warranted ;  furthermore,  that  so  clear  was  the 
right  of  the  defendant  that  "to  deny  it  would 
be  a  deliberate  defiance  of  the  plain  mandate  of 
the  law  and  a  manifest  misuse  of  judicial  power." 
So  much  for  Judge  Lawlor. 

There  is  little  more  to  be  said.  But  now  that 
the  smoke  of  battle  has  lifted,  let  us,  dear  reader, 
before  parting,  take  a  survey  of  the  battlefield. 
The  higher-ups  with  one  exception  are  at  lib- 
erty. The  one  exception  is  A.  K.  Detweiler  of 
the  Home  Telephone  Company.  When  indicted 
he  was  not  in  sight,  and  Detective  Burns  never 
tried  very  hard  to  find  him.  After  Gallagher's 
disappearance  Detweiler  surrendered  himself  to 
the  authorities,  and  afifected  an  eagerness  to  be 
tried.  But  nothing  has  yet  been  done  in  his 
case.     It  will  probably  be  dismissed. 

In  all  there  were  383  indictments  in  the  Graft 
cases.  The  only  persons  found  guilty  were 
Abraham  Ruef,  Eugene  Schmitz,  Supervisor 
Michael  Cofifey  and  Louis  Glass,  vice-president  of 
the  Pacific  States  Telephone  and  Telegraph  Com- 
pany. Glass  was  convicted  when  public  senti- 
ment was  at  white  heat.  He  was  given  the 
regulation  Heney  style  of  trial ;  and  for  what  re- 
formers are  pleased  to  describe  as  "technicalities" 


THE    CALHOUN    TRIAL  249 

the  verdict  was  set  aside.  These  "technicalities" 
are  plain,  nnvarnished  transgressions  of  consti- 
tutional rights.  Coffey  was  tried  in  violation  of 
his  immunity  contract  for  not  giving  the  right 
kind  of  testimony.  An  appeal  was  taken  in  his 
case,  and  is  still  pending.  The  principal  point 
on  which  he  relies  is  that  he  was  convicted  on  the 
testimony  of  an  accomplice. 

So,  as  we  have  seen,  the  attorneys  for  the 
prosecution  met  with  a  great  deal  of  discourage- 
ment in  the  trial  courts,  of  which  they  have 
never  had  occasion  to  make  complaint.  To  ac- 
count for  their  defeats  they  have  charged 
the  appellate  courts  with  having  shielded  the 
higher-ups,  whereas  they  never  succeeded  in 
convicting  more  than  one  of  the  representatives 
of  the  public  service  corporations.  Tirey  L. 
Ford  was  acquitted,  and  Patrick  Calhoun  almost. 
Theodore  Halsey,  of  the  Pacific  States  Telephone 
and  Telegraph  Company,  was  tried  twice,  de- 
fended by  liert  Schlesinger  and  acquitted  both 
times.  In  addition  to  these  cases  there  were  the 
cases  of  two  men  charged  with  jury-bribing,  de- 
fended by  Bert  Schlesinger,  and  acquitted.  There 
was  also  the  case  of  Luther  Brown,  charged  with 
the  kidnaping  of  Fremont  Older.  Brown  was 
defended  by  Bert  Schlesinger  and  acquitted. 
Obviously  if  justice  was  "broken  down"  in  San 
Francisco,  as  the  regenerators  have  frequently 
asserted,  the  catastrophe  occurred  in  the  jury- 
box,    over    whjch    the    prosecution    exercised    a 


250  THE    REGENERATORS 

supervision  never  surpassed  in  the  history  of  the 
criminal  courts  of  this  country.  To  the  recal- 
citrance of  jurors,  if  not  to  the  inherent  weakness 
of  the  evidence,  must  be  attributed  the  failure 
of  Heney  and  his  associates  to  procure  the  con- 
viction of  the  higher-ups.  But  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  and  even  in 
California  itself,  the  impression  prevails  that  the 
great  scheme  of  redemption  was  rendered 
frustrate  by  the  appellate  courts,  owing  to  a 
strong  bond  of  sympathy  between  the  judges  and 
the  rich  men  under  indictment.  Perseverance 
in  slander  seldom  goes  unrewarded.  California 
has  been  frequently  pointed  to  of  late  as  a  State 
that  needs  the  application  of  the  principle  of  the 
recall  to  the  judiciary;  and  the  failure  of  the 
Graft  Prosecution  is  the  reason.  The  failure  of 
the  Graft  Prosecution  is  the  reason  that  the 
Legislature  of  California,  at  the  suggestion  of 
Governor  Johnson,  decided  to  submit  to  the 
people  a  proposal  to  put  the  recall  in  the  Con- 
stitution. Men  have  a  curious  facility  in  be- 
lieving what  they  want  to  believe.  They  can 
even,  by  frequent  repetition,  come  to  believe 
false  assertions  about  their  own  experience. 
Probably  Governor  Johnson  really  believes  that 
the  judges  of  the  appellate  courts  thwarted  the 
regenerators,  and  that  consequently  those  judges 
should  be  recalled.  It  remains  to  be  seen  what 
measure  of  success  will  attend  the  efforts  of  the 
Governor    and    his    associates     .They    are    still 


THE    CALHOUN    TRIAL  251 

devoting-  their  talents  to  the  work  of  regenera- 
tion. Their  field  of  operations  now  extends  over 
the  whole  State  and  even  into  the  domain  of 
national  politics.  Rudolph  Spreckels,  impervious 
to  discouragement,  has  consecrated  his  genius  to 
the  task  of  redeeming  a  nation.  Francis  J. 
Heney,  now  a  lawyer  without  a  client,  cherishes 
the  hope  of  becoming  a  Senator  of  the  United 
States,  and  keeps  himself  before  the  public  in 
the  role  of  platform  muckraker.  James  D. 
Phelan  appears  to  be  attending  strictly  to  busi- 
ness. Once  the  star  performer  on  all  public 
occasions,  months  have  passed  since  this  fore- 
most citizen  enjoyed  the  opportunity  of  deliver- 
ing so  much  as  an  address  of  welcome  What- 
ever may  be  the  sentiment'  of  the  people  of  the 
State,  it  is  certain  that  the  affections  of  the  people 
of  the  metropolis  have  been  alienated  from  the 
zealous  exemplars  of  the  unwisdom  of  being 
righteous  overmuch.  Long  ago  the  populace 
ceased  to  scjuander  its  reverence  on  patriots,  who, 
while  professedly  eager  to  purge  the  city  of  cor- 
ruption, made  a  mockery  and  a  scandal  of  the 
most  sacred  of  the  institutions  of  government. 


IM    Ml     1_I_>S    >\IN(jfc.l_E.S 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


RENEWAL    AU(|  1 1 1966 


fci^^ 


t^'UHL 


Y  271968 


JAN  19 


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Form  L-9 

20JIV-1, '42(8519) 


I  AN    9  1978 


1978 

UHTBIIH 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

AT 

LOS  AJNGELES 

T.TRRAWV 


3  1158  00142  77^ 


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